The Ordinary World
by Tiki Rocket
Summary: The Lyoko Warriors need backup against their Xanafied former teammate, but with new friends comes a whole slew of problems.
1. Gonna Be Friends

_walk with me, Suzy Lee  
through the park, by the tree_

_...I can tell that we are gonna be friends_

Jeremie, Odd, and Ulrich heaved themselves out of the manhole in the park, returning to school from the factory at a very late hour on Friday evening.

"Something's not right," Jeremie said, dusting himself off. "Xana's been too quiet."

"I dunno," Odd said, "Maybe that last battle is making him reconsider his position."

Ulrich snorted. "Yeah, right. He must've had a sudden change in perspective and only wants to use his powers for good, now, is that it?"

"You never know..."

All three boys froze at the sound of something rustling nearby. The sound stopped, and a deathly silence fell, as if they and whatever was watching them were holding their breath.

"What was that?" Odd whispered.

Ulrich started tip-toeing in the direction of the sound. There was a large shrub next to a tree, but it was too dark to see if there was something hiding behind it.

"Wait!" hissed Jeremie, startling Ulrich. "What if it's an animal?"

The thought of stumbling across a large beast made Ulrich think twice. "Anyone got a really long stick?" he suggested.

Odd and Jeremie walked closer. Whatever had made the noise, it was perfectly still.

"Maybe it was just a mouse," said Odd. "It could've run away by now."

"We can't just leave it alone," Ulrich insisted. "What if there's a person? They would've heard us. ...Jeremie, what are you doing?"

"Looking for a rock." Jeremie was crouched low to the ground, trying -- without success -- to find a rock in the dark. "If we can throw something, and the sound actually was from an animal, we have a better chance of running away."

"Smart thinking," Odd commended, crouching down to do the same. "Here, found one."

The three boys took several steps back from the bush. Odd aimed at the shadowed foliage, and threw the rock.

He missed by several feet. The stone flew clear over the top-most leaves and landed somewhere beyond.

"Brilliant aim, Dead-eye," Ulrich muttered. "Let me try."

He knelt down, found another stone, and stood up. He aimed, threw, and hit the lowest tree branch instead.

Before Odd could fire a retort, there was a terrible screeching noise. All three boys shouted and jumped back as an owl swooped out of the tree and flew off.

They watched it go, then Odd started laughing. "Oh man... All that over a dumb bird!"

Ulrich started to chuckle, too, but Jeremie only managed a weak smile.

"Now that we've scared ourselves stupid," he said, "Let's head back to the dorms. I'm past ready for bed."

The three of them, still rattled, turned away and headed back towards the school.

On the other side of the bush, sharp, curious eyes watched their retreat.

--------------------

Monday morning dawned earlier than Odd liked -- but then, he never liked mornings, or Mondays, so it was never late enough for getting out of bed to be a good idea. Still, when Ulrich said, "Wake up, Sleeping Doofy, we've got to get to class," Odd forced himself to sit upright.

"If I'm still tired," he said, smirking, "It's because you snore."

Ulrich grinned. "Coming from the human chainsaw, that's a laugh. Do you want to get breakfast or not?"

The day carried on like any other until halfway through the morning, when the classroom door opened and Principal Delmas ushered in a pair of kids.

"Principal," addressed Mrs. Hertz. "To what do we owe this honor?"

"Simply showing our new students the school," he said. "They'll be joining your class starting today. Introduce yourselves, please."

The new students -- a boy and a girl -- stood on either side of the principal a the front of the classroom. The boy wore blue jeans and a grey button-down shirt over a black t-shirt. The girl wore a white zip-up hoodie whose zipper she couldn't seem to stop fiddling with, a black blouse, and a pink skirt with knee-high boots. They glanced at each other, and the girl finally stopped fidgeting. The boy spoke first.

"Luc Bouquet," he said. "My family has just returned to France after living in the United States."

"Mina Whitehawk," said the girl. Then, in strongly american-accented French, "Luc's adopted sister."

_Explains why they look nothing alike,_ thought Odd. Mina had long, dark hair and tan brown eyes; Luc was blue-eyed and blond.

The teacher pointed to the empty desks near the back and invited them to take their places. "I'll give you textbooks before the end of class; right now, if everyone would please take out their notebooks, it's time for some note-taking."

A few students groaned.

------------------------

The rest of the morning passed as usual. When lunch began, Yumi caught up with Ulrich outside the cafeteria door.

"Hey," she said. "I heard there were some new students that came in this morning?"

"News travels fast," observed Ulrich.

"Bathroom gossip travels faster than the speed of light," Yumi joked. "Have you talked to them yet?"

He shook his head. "Haven't had the time. Odd tried passing a note to the girl, but the teacher started walking between the desks and he didn't have a chance to finish." He glanced up. "Oh, hey..."

Yumi followed Ulrich's line of sight to a pair of unfamiliar faces -- the new students. Both of them were carrying trays of cafeteria food, and they had the same lost expression on their faces.

"C'mon," Yumi urged, taking Ulrich by the wrist. "Let's go invite them to eat with us."

As they approached, Luc looked up and saw them. He tugged the edge of Mina's shirt to get her attention.

"Hey," Yumi said. "I'm Yumi. This is Ulrich. Welcome to Kadic Junior High!"

"Thanks," Luc answered, offering his hand to shake. "I'm Luc. This is Mina."

Mina gave a faint smile and a small, nervous wave.

"She's not confident, yet with her French," Luc explained. "And she's shy with new people, too."

"Hey guys!" called Aelita, hurrying over with Jeremie not far behind. "Oh, you have company." She smiled in greeting.

"Aelita and Jeremie," said Ulrich, "Meet Luc and Mina."

"Want to join us for lunch?" Jeremie asked.

Luc looked at Mina, who shrugged, then back to the group, smiling. "Sure."

Odd joined them at their lunch table, introduced himself emphatically to Mina, and immediately began regaling his new classmates with stories about their fellow students. He beamed when he got Mina to giggle.

A shrill voice made everyone shrink in their seats.

"Great, the class shrew," Ulrich muttered, as Sissi made her approach.

"Well, well, the new students!" Sissi began, her typically snooty voice even snootier than usual. "You probably know already, since I'm so popular, but I'm Elisabeth Delmas, the principal's daughter. Everyone calls me Sissi. You should probably know --" she directed this at Luc "-- that the company you keep will affect how people look at you." She shot a dirty look around at the rest of the people seated at the table. "You're welcome to make friends with me; it'd guarantee your position in the school's pecking order."

Yumi glared. "What are you talking about, Sissi? You're the only one who cares."

"Yeah," Jeremie added. "And since when do you invite anyone to join your goof troop?"

Sissi fumed. "Just because you're all too stupid to care about popularity doesn't mean everyone else is! Besides," she continued, eyeing Luc appreciatively, "I only like the beautiful people."

"Is that what you call those goons who follow you around all the time?" Ulrich said under his breath.

"Be fair," chided Aelita. "Maybe she sees them as beautiful."

Before Sissi could express her outrage, Luc intervened. "Thank you for your invitation," he said diplomatically, "But I must decline."

Sissi pouted. "But why?"

"You didn't invite Mina. I can't abandon her."

Sissi took a breath, then looked torn; clearly, she couldn't decide if scoring points with Luc was more important than getting a tag-along like Mina.

After several seconds of deliberation, she stalked off. "This isn't over!" she insisted.

Jeremie applauded. "Wow, Luc, I don't think I've ever seen someone chase Sissi off that easily."

"Thanks," Luc said, "But it was nothing. Besides, I really couldn't abandon Mina; she'd be utterly lost without me."

Mina shot him a dirty look and elbowed him in the ribs. Luc chuckled, raising his arms in mock defense.

"I wouldn't be lost," she defended. "I don't need you around all the time. If you want a girlfriend, I'd be more than happy to encourage you."

"Don't be like that," Luc soothed. "I'd never leave you to chase a girl. Besides," he added, winking, "If I got a girlfriend, who would you beat up on?"

She punched his shoulder. "I don't beat up on you! Just when you deserve it."

Luc laughed. "And I always make sure I've earned it."

_The author's eternal gratitude to Lea Rocket for her invaluable canon-checking and beta-reading skills. ♥_


	2. Real Bad Dreams

Just before school ended for the day, Jeremie's laptop started to beep at him. The noise sent a chill down his spine; Xana was finally attacking.

The wait until the bell rang was the longest ten minutes of his life. He passed a note to Ulrich, who passed it on to Odd and Aelita, and from his computer he sent a text message to Yumi. They met in the hall as soon as class was out.

"Aelita and Yumi, take the boiler room route," Jeremie delegated. "Ulrich and I will go through the park. Odd, you're on damage control."

They broke off into their separate factions. As Jeremie and Ulrich made it out of the building, a harsh voice called after them.

"Belpois! Stern! Where are you off to?"

Both boys cringed before turning to face their gym teacher.

"Hey, Jim," Jeremie started cheerfully. "How's life?"

"Answer the question, Belpois. What are you running for?"

"Oh, you know, just the joy of youth."

"Class is out," Ulrich said. "We can run around if we want to. Burn off some of that energy so we can focus on homework, right?"

"You kids are too suspicious, running off as soon as the bell rings... Maybe I should join you on your little excursion?"

Just as it was beginning to look like Jim was off on another tear, Mina appeared from nowhere.

"Jim?" she asked nervously. "You're the physical education teacher, correct? Could you help me? I'm afraid I won't meet the school's P. E. standards. My studies are fine everywhere else, but if I don't do well in one of my classes..." Mina trailed off, looking almost ready to cry.

The tears in her eyes caused Jim to blanch. "Oh, no, you'll do fine, I'm sure!"

"Please, sir, would you tell me what more I can do? Extra credit if I can't keep up? Physical education standards in the States is subpar, compared to the rest of the world."

"This is true," Jim said. "I've heard stories about schools minimizing or eliminating their physical education requirements, Stateside; tragic state of affairs, really. You'd _never_ see that kind of student neglect in France." He smiled smugly, proud of his very important area of expertise.

This did nothing to stem the flow of Mina's tears. "So you understand why I'm worried?"

With Jim so fully distracted by the crying girl, Jeremie and Ulrich sneaked off towards the manhole.

"Man," said Ulrich. "Talk about great timing."

They arrived at the factory just moments after Yumi and Aelita.

"What took you?" asked Yumi.

"Jim," replied Ulrich, and the girls nodded sympathetically.

Jeremie was already running for the computer room. "No time to discuss," he said. "We have to get to Lyoko!"

The others followed shortly behind, virtualizing in the desert.

"Jeremie, any idea what it's affecting in the real world?" Aelita asked.

"No word from Odd, so I'm assuming he hasn't found anything. The activated tower is just north of you; stay alert, everyone."

Odd walked at a fast clip around the campus, keening his ears for the tell-tale screams of a Xana attack. When he heard a shout, he ran in the direction it came from.

He found Mina was sitting on the ground, looking dejected, with a deeply troubled Jim standing next to her. "Ohh... I'll never be able to do ten pull-ups!"

"Like I keep trying to tell you," Jim was saying, "You only need to do three for class requirements!"

"I'm an over-achiever!" she cried, "I have to do better than that!"

Odd tried to back away, but Jim noticed him.

"Della Robbia! Take Whitehawk to the infirmary; she might have... muscle strain. That's it. She needs to be treated immediately." His order given, Jim beat a hasty retreat.

Odd was still steeling himself to deal with an onslaught of tears when he realized Mina was no longer crying. In fact, she looked quite normal -- possibly even pleased with herself.

"Uhm... What...?"

She giggled at Odd's confusion. "Jeremie and Ulrich looked like they needed a distraction. I made one up." Then she looked curiously at Odd. "Do you know where they were going?"

"No idea," he said, a bit too quickly. "So you're fine?"

"Of course," she said, flexing her arms. "I just kept up the act long enough to make sure they had plenty of time. I'm sure I'll do well in P.E." She looked hopefully at Odd. "Though I might need some help with my French."

"You're doing just fine so far," he said. "Almost as good as your acting skills!"

Odd's cell phone beeped in his pocket, bringing him back to the task he was supposed to be attending to. "Sorry," he said to Mina, "I'm kind of in the middle of something."

"Maybe I could help," Mina offered.

He hesitated, then said, "Okay, well... I'm basically looking for anything strange. Like someone screaming, or really big crash noises..."

"Oh...kay..." Mina was puzzled, "Well, I'll do what I can to help. Why are you looking for trouble?"

"Heh heh, oh, you know, latent hero complex." He tried not to cringe at his own terrible excuse.

Mina laughed. "All right, whatever. Let's go."

They didn't have to go far. Shortly after entering the cafeteria, they heard the clatter of trays and metal cooking implements -- clattering as if caught in a force 9 gale.

Odd shot Mina a worried look; explaining this would be difficult. She looked back at him, then at the doors into the kitchen. Odd covered his ears and moved closer to the sound, and Mina followed suit.

He made it to the doorframe and pushed the door open enough to see in. Mina peeked in as well, and both of them gaped at the scene.

The leftovers from that day's congealed macaroni and cheese/spaghetti and meatballs options were doing battle, grabbing whatever wasn't bolted down in gobby hands and hurling it at each other. The kitchen staff appeared to have evacuated as soon as the food started acting unnaturally.

"I always knew cafeteria food was bad for you," Odd said. Mina heard him over the din and giggled – a little too loudly. The pasta monsters halted in mid-hurl and turned their attention toward the door. In silent agreement, they declared a truce in favor of attacking this new opponent.

Odd backed away from the door. "Oops." He grabbed Mina's arm and pulled her towards the exit. "Let's go!"

As he ran, he dialed Jeremie on his cell. "Found the problem," he said into the mouthpiece. "It turns out that you really shouldn't trust the cafeteria food!"

"What's it doing now?"

Odd panted. "Whaddaya think?"

"I take it that means it's chasing you."

"Me, and Mina; she was there when I found it. Hurry and deactivate the tower, macaroni moves a lot faster than I thought it could!"

Jeremie relayed the situation to the warriors on Lyoko. "Hurry up, guys," he encouraged. "Or Odd's gonna be our lunch's lunch."

"Ha ha," said Yumi dryly. "We'll save Odd just because you could never take over as our comic relief."

A pair of tarantulas sprang up from behind an outcropping of rocks ahead of them; Yumi engaged one, Ulrich the other, and Aelita hurried on ahead toward the tower.

"Any sign of William?" Ulrich asked the disembodied voice of Jeremie.

"Nothing yet. Let's not tempt fate and just get this over with."

"Easy for you to say. You don't have someone firing lasers at your head." Ulrich blocked an incoming missile with one blade, using the other to throw at the tarantula's forehead. It embedded in the eye insignia there; the tarantula twitched, then exploded.

"Little help?" Yumi called. Ulrich turned to see her caught at the edge of a very long drop, a tarantula powering up to blast her into oblivion. She hurled a fan at it, scuffing the side of its head, but the momentum knocked her back.

Ulrich lunged forward. "Yumi!"

The tarantula fired a beam at where Yumi had been. Her fan boomeranged, making another pass at its head before returning to Yumi's hand. Ulrich ducked under the monster's legs, grabbing Yumi's ankle before she fell but leaving himself completely open.

Wordlessly, she caught her returning fan, then flung both of them at the tarantula as it took point-blank range at Ulrich.

Tarantula bits splattered everywhere. Yumi pulled herself up, grabbing onto Ulrich's wrist. He took hold of her forearm and heaved her back up to standing.

"Nice fighting, guys!" Jeremie encouraged. "Odd, what's your situation?"

Odd's response was barely above a whisper, and Jeremie had to strain to hear him.

"We're hiding in a tree." Down below, the macaroni and spaghetti monsters were circling; they knew they'd lost their quarry, but they couldn't figure out how. "Lucky for us, spaghetti sauce doesn't make a great brain."

"Given that the neurological system is largely made up of fatty tissue --"

"Jeremie!" Odd hissed.

"Sorry. How's Mina holding up?"

"Well, she's not hysterical." Odd covered the mouthpiece on his phone, looking at Mina. "I'm sorry I dragged you into this."

Mina's whole body was tense as she gripped the tree branch she was sitting on, but she bravely responded, "It's okay. At least this way, neither of us are facing it alone."

"Hold out just a little longer, you guys," Jeremie said. "Aelita?"

"I'm in the tower. Just a few more seconds..."

She landed in front of the input device, and entered the code. The tower deactivated.

In the real world, a pile of cafeteria food drained of all signs of life. Odd jumped down from the tree he was perched in, landing just beyond the edge of the mess. Mina dropped down next to him.

"What was that?" she asked.

He smiled apologetically. "In a few seconds, it'll be just a bad dream."

Over the phone, he heard Jeremie say, "Return to the past!"

----------

"...Introduce yourselves, please."

Odd was scribbling furiously on a blank sheet of paper in the back of his notebook. As the new students finished introducing themselves and took their seats, he folded the page up and tossed it onto Mina's desk.

_Welcome to Kadic!_ it read._ I'd love to make friends with you._

Mina read the note, and looked back at Odd. Odd smiled brightly and waved.

Mina smiled and waved back.

------------------

"...And when it looked like Ulrich and Jeremie were being cornered by that teacher, you ran over and distracted him so they could get away."

"Uh huh... And what did you do?"

"I tailed them. There's an old factory nearby, and a supercomputer in the basement."

"Well, okay," Mina said, frowning. "Assuming I believe you: Why do you remember this and I don't?"

"I dunno," Luc replied, brow knitting in confusion. "I sneaked into the basement, and... maybe I was close enough to the center of the trigger. Didn't it seem like everyone else knew a little too much about us already?"

Mina nodded. "I have this really weird feeling, too... Like I'd met Odd before, or like I dreamed about him last night." She snickered. "But that _had_ to be a dream. There's no such thing as a macaroni monster."

"In any case," Luc continued, "This explains a little more about that manhole in the woods. You were there; you heard them."

With a sigh, Mina sat back in the office chair she was inhabiting and spun. "So what do we do?"

Luc watched her silently until she looked up, first in curiosity and then reluctance.

"You don't mean..."

"I think we should check it out." When Mina groaned, clutching the sides of her head, Luc pressed on. "Don't be dramatic. You know you're interested. You'd never even think about going if I weren't there to push you along."

"That's because you're full of bad ideas. I've gotten more injuries as a result of your 'suggestions' than I've had shoes."

Luc laughed. "Which just means you don't have enough shoes. And your life is so much richer for listening to me. You'd be bored without me, admit it."

"Yeah, I'd be bored, but my grades would be better."

Luc rolled his eyes. "You do even better than me in school."

"You only avoid failing because I force you to study."

"See? We're a perfect team. I study because of you; you have fun because of me."

Mina groaned again. "Fine, I'll go along with your dumb plan! When do we leave?"

"Tonight," Luc said, triumphant. "Once everyone else is asleep."


	3. The Security Breachers

"Aelita, have you been visiting the computer room alone recently?"Aelita looked at Jeremie, puzzled. "No, why do you ask?"

"I went in this morning to check on something, and it didn't look how I left it. Yumi, what about you?"

Yumi had shown up early that Wednesday morning with toast and a banana for breakfast. She finished swallowing before she answered. "Nope, not me."

"Huh, that's weird..."

"Hey," Odd prodded, not bothering with politeness and speaking around a mouthful of cereal. "Why'ntcha ask me'n Urik?"

Jeremie cringed distastefully. "Because if you'd gone in there, it would've been a total mess."

Ulrich frowned, affronted. "Hey, I wouldn't have trashed the place. Unlike Casanova, here, who keeps losing his collection of girlfriend photos."

"I don't _lose_ it. I've got several stashes of them. You don't think I'd keep it all in one spot, would you?"

"And you _still_ can't find any of them."

"That's not the point," Jeremie cut in. "The point is, if none of us have been in the computer room but things are being moved around, we've got a really big problem. Someone besides us knows about the lab."

The breakfast table fell abruptly silent.

Ulrich spoke, his voicer quieter than before. "How long has this been happening?"

"Just recently," Jeremie answered. "Something seemed off yesterday, but I couldn't tell what it was. Today, some of the notes I'd left in the factory yesterday were definitely not in the same place I left them."

"Was anything missing?" asked Yumi.  
"That's the thing -- nothing's actually gone. The chair will be in a different position, or a window will be moved on the screen, or paperwork will be facing a different direction. Whoever it is, they don't cover their tracks well."

"Unless they want to be caught," Odd mused. Everyone turned towards him. "What?"

Aelita looked caught between nervousness and excitement. "D'you think that, whoever this is, they want us to know they've been poking around?"

"Why would they be so obvious if they weren't actually tampering with anything?" Jeremie countered. "I mean, yeah, things have been moved, but no data has been altered."

The first bell rang before anyone provided an explanation, and so they went to class in a sullen, contemplative silence.

------------

Luc and Mina arrived in the classroom moments before the bell rang, both out of breath as they hurried towards their seats. Luc inhaled deeply as he sat down and did some light grooming, settling his windblown blond hair. Mina didn't bother, sitting down and hunching face first over the desk surface, running her fingers through her hair from her temples until they tangled in the back. Her long, straight black locks curtained around her face, and she didn't sit up as class began.

"Looks like someone had a long night," observed Odd to Ulrich. He scribbled a note on a piece of paper. _Hey, sleepy-head. Why the panda eyes?_

Only when the paper landed on her head and bounced onto the desktop did Mina sit up. She read the note, pulled out a pen, and wrote a response before tossing it back. _Space Ninja-mutants 4 vs. Luc last night. We just got the game, and we played until two this morning._ She followed this up with a doodle of herself with panda ears and markings. _What's your excuse:p_

Odd stifled his laughter at her drawing. _Videogames, but not nearly as cool as yours. How is it?_

They carried this written conversation for the rest of the class. When the bell rang, and Odd realized he had missed everything the teacher had said, Mina promised to let him copy her notes.

"How'd you have time for note-taking?"

She grinned. "Just talented, I guess."

Luc -- who had witnessed their exchange -- smirked, and added, "She learned to be that fast because of how often she would fall asleep in class and have to write her notes in shorthand to get any of it. How she read it later, I'll never know; her handwriting's pretty illegible, anyway, but sleepy speed-writing?"

Mina punched his shoulder lightly. "Coming from the Chicken-scratch Master, that's some pretty lofty criticism. Odd could read it."

"My handwriting is perfect, thank you very much!" Luc declared.

Ulrich jumped in, "And besides that, Odd's handwriting is pretty awful, too." He winked at Mina. "Maybe you write the same chicken-code?"

"Are you insulting both of us, now? Man, how's that for friendship!"

"C'mon, man, you're my best friend -- but that doesn't mean I can read your writing."

--------------

After a false alarm on Friday evening, Jeremie was fairly itching for a Xana attack.

"I don't see what you're so worked up over," Odd said, leaning back against the wall by Jeremie's bed. He bounced his foot to a rhythm only he seemed able to hear. "If Xana's not doing anything, it means we're in the clear, right?"

"Not at all." Jeremie sank back in his computer chair. "It means he's planning something. Something really complicated. His attacks over the last few weeks have been way too simple. And since when does he activate a tower only to deactivate it a few minutes later?"

"Are you sure it was Xana?" asked Ulrich. "What if something else is out there?"

Jeremie shuddered. "I don't want to think about it. One crazed program is enough, thanks."

After that, the conversation was hijacked and derailed by Odd and his videogame. No matter how Jeremie struggled to bring him back to task, he knew the battle was lost when Ulrich said, "Hey, let me try!"

After another hour of trying to work on the Skid's specs with the other boys there, Jeremie finally chased them out of his room. "If you're not going to help, at least don't be distracting," he chastised. He shot down their invitation to play with them, insisting that he was almost done with a new alteration on the Skidbladnir, and closed the door.

--------------

In the park, a troublesome pair pried the manhole cover off of the entrance to the sewer and climbed down.

"Are you sure we should be doing this?" Mina asked. "The first couple times, yeah, okay, but this is number three. What makes you think we'll find something new?"

Luc checked the soles of his shoes, flicking out the wheels embedded in them before he answered. "We might not," he admitted. "But what if we do?"

"We almost got caught, last time."

"Only because we weren't expecting anyone to come in, that early in the morning. How was I to know Jeremie would show up?"

Luc started rolling down the sewer, then stopped. Mina stood by the ladder still, her arms crossed.

"What?"

"I don't think we should go."

"Ngh... Why?"

Mina shrugged. "I dunno. Bad feeling. Sometimes, the third time is a charm. Right now, though, I think we're just pushing our luck. Besides, I'm not wearing my wheelie-shoes and I'm not going to jog to keep up with you."

Luc sighed, clicked the wheels back into his shoes, and walked back to Mina. He uncrossed her arms, and when she sulkily turned away from him he turned with her. "I'll walk, okay? We'll probably be quieter that way, too, so if someone's there we can hide before they hear us."

Mina looked up at him. She looked doubtful, but Luc recognized that expression: it meant she was almost convinced, no matter what she thought. "Just one last time, I promise."

She groaned, but started walking in the direction of the factory. "Fine. Man, there's GOT to be a better route than a sewer. It stinks down here."

Luc almost tackled her, he hugged her so hard. "Thank you!"

"Yeah, yeah. Get off. And if you shriek with glee, I will smack you and THEN go back home."

----------

Jeremie sat bolt upright, only just realizing he'd fallen asleep at his desk again. He might have slept through the night, but an alarm had woken him -- and it hadn't been his alarm clock.

On his way to the factory, he dialed Ulrich. "Sorry to wake you, but there's a situation. Wake Odd and meet me at the elevator in the factory as soon as possible."

Ulrich, barely awake enough to understand what Jeremie had just ordered, pulled on the nearest pants and shirt he could find on the dorm floor and prayed they were his. "Odd," he said, prodding his still-sleeping room mate. "Wake up, we have to get to the factory."

Odd made a disgruntled sound and rolled over. "Xana's discovered my weakness," he mumbled. "Sleep deprivation. He's won before the battle could start..."

Ulrich heaved Odd upright. "C'mon, put on some clothes and let's go!"

"All right, all right..."

Jeremie greeted them outside the elevator shaft, but the elevator itself was gone.

"What are we waiting for?" said Odd, now more awake after having run across the campus. "Shouldn't you be waiting impatiently in your chair at the supercomputer?"

Jeremie smirked. "Not this time. This is going to require stealth on our part." He paused. "When did you guys switch wardrobes?"

Odd and Ulrich looked down. They'd grabbed the right pants, but their shirts were definitely wrong.

"I'd like to know how Odd's shirt ended up on my side of the room... Whatever, just tell us what's going on," Ulrich said.

"Right... You remember the other day, when I told you someone besides us had been in the computer room?"

The other boys nodded.

"I set up a silent alarm -- just something that would send a message to my computer if anyone goes into or out of that room when we're not around." Jeremie looked extraordinarily pleased with himself as he concluded, "The alarm went off just a little while ago."

Within a matter of minutes, Jeremie explained his plan: they would take their shoes off and use the ladder, going as quietly as possible, and catch whoever it was in the act.

"Odd, I'll send you a text message as soon as Ulrich and I are in place. Then you activate the elevator -- there's no other way out, so they'll be completely cornered."

"Roger that, Einstein. Man, how can you think so much on so little sleep?"

Jeremie took a few seconds to preen at Odd's praise. "Thank you, Odd. Now, let's go!"


	4. Ideas of Questionable Integrity

"I'm telling you," Mina insisted, "There's nothing more to see here."

"There is," Luc countered. "You saw those pod-things in the other room. they've got to be used for something." He clicked a few more windows open on the computer screen, then sat back in frustration. "I'm just not computer-savvy enough to understand. It's all too foreign."

"It looks like a completely different language to me," Mina said peering over his shoulder. "I can barely make a word processor run without crashing it."

"And yet, you kick my butt at _Space Mutant-ninjas 4_ every round," Luc huffed. "How's that work?"

The clang of the elevator moving made them freeze.

"Oh snap," Mina said, glancing at Luc. "Someone's coming!"

Two thumping sounds from the ladder behind them startled them both into whirling around.

Ulrich looked from one sibling to the other. "Luc? Mina?"

"Looks like we've caught our culprits," Jeremie observed. "What do you think you're doing?"

The siblings looked guiltily at each other, then back at Jeremie and Ulrich. "Snooping where we don't belong?" offered Mina, opting for honesty as the best policy.

The elevator descended, and Odd entered the room as the doors opened. "Mina? Luc, too?"

"I talked her into it," Luc said immediately. "She didn't want to, but I didn't want to do it alone, so I begged and pleaded and because we're best friends she finally agreed, but I had to promise cookies and strawberry cake and possibly even my firstborn --"

Mina swatted his shoulder, and Luc grinned. "Okay, okay. Maybe not the cookies."

She rolled her eyes at him, then sighed and sat down on the floor. "Okay, so you caught us. Would you tell us what this place is?"

Jeremie, Odd, and Ulrich exchanged worried looks.

"Put it this way," started Odd. "Can you keep a secret?"

"The only person I'd tell is Luc," Mina said.

Luc nodded. "And the only person I'd tell is Mina."

"It's not like we know anyone else here. Present company excluded. And Yumi. And Aelita." Mina thought for another moment, then added, "And Sissi, I guess, but she doesn't count."

With a sigh, Jeremie relented. "If a return to the past could go back more than 24 hours, I'd do it..." He considered how many days had passed since he first noticed things had been rearranged. "Fine." He walked up to the computer chair where Luc was sitting, resting his hand on the back of it. "What we're about to tell you is top secret. You can't tell anyone, okay? Not even your parents."

"Not a problem," Luc and Mina said in perfect, dead-pan synchrony.

Just then, the computer screen started to flash red.

Jeremie groaned. "Oh no... what bad timing!"

"Not at all," Odd quipped. "Instead of boring details, they get a practical example!"

Jeremie called Aelita to let her know she was needed. In the mean time, Ulrich, Odd, and Mina went to the scanners.

"Whoa, hang on," Ulrich said, standing between Mina and the nearest open scanner. "We said we'd explain, but that doesn't mean you should go with us."

Mina crossed her arms. "Practical example, right? I learn better by doing."

Ulrich mirrored her pose, arms crossing, shifting his weight to one side like he could wait all night. Odd clapped him on the shoulder.

"We're still down one Yumi, and Aelita might be a little while. We need whatever help we can get, right?"

Reluctantly, Ulrich stepped out of the way, and Mina took her place in the scanner. She was almost bouncing with excitement.

Luc stayed with Jeremie, eagerly watching his new classmate-turned-confidante keying in directions. When the status cards for Ulrich, Odd, and Mina appeared onscreen, he pointed at them.

"What's all this?"

"Everyone's information." Jeremie used the mouse to hover over the details. "That's HP. If they run out, they devirtualize and can't go back into Lyoko for a while."

"Luc, can you hear me?"

Jeremie handed Luc a spare headset so he could communicate. "Mina?"

"You're not gonna believe this..."

"Rendering visual," said Jeremie, fingers moving at blurring speed across the the keyboard. A window popped up on screen, and Luc could see his adopted sister and Odd standing near each other on a green path that appeared to be floating between very tall trees.

"Check me out!" Mina said excitedly. "This is so cool!"

Mina's usual clothes had been replaced with a white bodysuit, an orange bolero and matching skirt, and knee-high white moccasins. Gloves covered her hands, white with orange fingers; silver medallions at her temples pinned three feathers into place against her hair.

"Not the time for a fashion show," Jeremie prompted. "There's a Megatank heading your way; get ready to fight!"

The digital Mina blanched; Odd and Ulrich took fighting stances and prepared for the attack. Rolling down the green pathway towards them was a giant metal ball. It stopped much faster than anything that size or shape naturally should, and Mina jumped visibly when it split wide open.

"Move!" Ulrich snapped, shoving her hard to the right and lurching left in the same motion. A wide ray of light shot out from the monster, and it startled her so badly she didn't even think to be mad at Ulrich for pushing her.

"Okay," she squeaked, "Maybe this was a bad idea. Luc!"

"Don't panic, Mina," urged Luc. "You can't possibly look that cool and not have a skill to use."

Her voice wavered when she responded. "I don't feel very cool right now. I feel very, very panicky." The Megatank was repositioning for another attack; Ulrich and Odd were diverting its attention away from her, but there wasn't a lot of room on the pathway to maneuver.

Odd jumped off of the pathway to avoid being knocked off completely, digging his claws into the nearest tree. Almost opposite him, Ulrich faced a similar dilemma, swaying at the edge and then leaping to embed one of his blades in the nearest tree trunk, holding him high above the digital sea. The Megatank knew it had a prime advantage -- and, several yards away, Mina could see it, too.

The Megatank powered up to strike, and Mina shrieked and lunged forward, throwing her hands out to stop it.

Vines shot out of the ground, lifting the Megatank upward, knocking it askew and binding it open. It let loose a powerful blast, but it's new height and angle put it just above the levels where Odd and Ulrich were stuck. It alternately struggled to close and blasted helplessly a few times.

Then Odd leaped back onto the path, climbed onto the monster, and blasted it in the eye.

"Easiest Megatank victory ever," he said, helping Ulrich back onto solid ground. He gave Mina a thumbs up, and winked. "Thanks, Dollface."

Mina blushed. "It was dumb luck. I had no idea I could do that." She frowned. "Dollface?"

Odd grinned. Ulrich glanced at him, looked back to Mina, and rolled his eyes.

"Hit on my sister," Luc's omnipresent voice said sternly, "And I might have to kill you."

"Only 'might?" inquired Odd.

"Do the words 'shotgun wedding' mean anything to you?"

"Aelita's coming in," informed Jeremie. "In just a few minutes, this will all be over."

Aelita appeared moments after he announced her. She smiled at Mina. "Nice outfit!"

"Yours, too."

"Ladies, please!"

"Yes, Jeremie," they chimed.

Jeremie brought up the Overboard and the Overbike. Mina hopped onto the Overbike behind Ulrich. With a graciously offered hand and a, "Princess?", Odd helped Aelita onto the Overboard.

As they road towards the tower, Mina leaned over Ulrich's shoulder. "Does he flirt with everyone?" she whispered.

"Not quite," Ulrich whispered back... then realized he couldn't remember anyone Odd hadn't flirted with. "I don't think he's flirted with Mrs. Hertz."

Mina stifled a giggle.

Outside the tower, there was a small scattering of Kankrelats. Their front ends glowed, fully charged and ready to fire.

Odd zoomed over the top of them at full tilt, jumping straight up and off of the Overboard as it flew at the tower. Aelita, from the force of momentum, flew straight into the tower. The Overboard bounced off and away, while Odd landed on his feet, already aiming a laser arrow at the nearest Kankrelat.

Ulrich stopped the Overbike directly in front of the pack of Kankrelats, pulling Mina off and tugging her down to hide behind it.

"Stay here," he told her. "This'll be done in a sec." Then he drew his swords and joined the melee.

Mina crouched down and covered her head with her arms. Moments later, she was slumping over from an upright position, and she was in her normal clothes again.

"So?" demanded Luc, propping her upright. "How was it? It looked really cool!"

"It was very..." she searched for the right word. "Exhausting. Can we go home, now?"

Luc looked dumbstruck. "Are you joking? All that, and you don't even want to know why?"

"I'll want to know why in the morning." Mina paused. "Or maybe around noon. What time is it?"

"We're staying. You can take a nap, but I, for one, want to know what all of that was about."

Now that the adrenaline had worn off, Mina just wanted to be left alone to recover. She swallowed the urge to cry. "Fine. But I'm stealing your button-up shirt."

Luc shed the shirt immediately. Mina took off her sweater and balled it up, then put on Luc's grey button-up before heading back to the supercomputer room behind Aelita, Odd, and Ulrich. She didn't even stop to explain before picking a spot along the wall, adjusting her sweater under her head, and curling up to sleep.

---------------

"You have to keep us," Luc said. "If everything you've said is true -- especially about that former teammate of yours -- then you need strong backup."

"Our former teammate is exactly why we're worried." Jeremie pushed his glasses up his nose. "Backup is all well and good, but the more people that are involved, the more of a risk there is that something will go wrong."

"It's not personal," Aelita assuaged. "We're all very accustomed to working as a small unit; to go from five to seven -- eight, if you include William -- that's a lot of people to look after."

"And a lot of people to cover for if something happens," Jeremie finished. "I don't think this is a good idea."

"I think it is," Odd said cheerfully. "New friends, new people we don't have to hide anything from... I don't have a big mouth or anything --"

"Oh, don't you?" muttered Ulrich.

Odd pretended not to hear. "-- But sometimes it's hard keeping secrets all the time, and lying is such a bad habit to get in to."

Jeremie looked defeated. "I can't believe I'm getting a lecture on morals from Odd."

"What's wrong with my morals?"

"I'm sure we could find some flaws. Look, that's not the point." Ulrich leaned back against the wall. "The point is, this has been our problem for a long time already, and we don't want to make it anyone else's."

"But you need the help," Luc argued. "You've already said it: William is really strong. You haven't been able to handle it on your own. What makes you think that'll change?" He took a deep breath, and let it out slowly before continuing. "Sorry. I'm not trying to offend anyone. But surely, you can see the benefit of having two more ready and able bodies? It's not like everyone else is always available to drop what they're doing."

Nodding reluctantly, Jeremie admitted, "That's true."

"Besides," Luc said, and from the glint in his eye it was clear this was his trump card. "I have photographic memory, and I saw you enter the directions for the virtualization process and the vehicles. I saw the notes you left down here, too. Now that I know what all of this is for, who's to say I won't come down here anyway?"

Jeremie, Aelita, and Ulrich looked at each other. Odd simply looked impressed. Luc's trump card certainly nulled anything else on the table.

"We'll discuss it with Yumi tomorr -- er. Later today," said Jeremie, though it was clear already that Luc had won. "We'll put it to a vote. As of now, though..." He pinned Luc with a look sharpened to a deadly finish, and any victory Luc felt faded. "If you use any of this equipment or even enter this room without telling me or Aelita first, you're out."

"I agree to your terms." Luc put his hand out to shake, and Jeremie took it. Then he smiled. "Who's ready for bed?"

"Oh man," said Odd. "I thought we'd never get there."

Luc woke Mina and guided her to the elevator. Once everyone was in, Aelita pressed the button to take them up.

They parted ways in the park, Odd adding, "Goodnight, Dollface," before hurrying back towards the dormitory and his bed. Mina and Luc began walking at an easier pace towards their home.

"Luc," Mina began.

Luc knew that tone. He'd been caught at something. "Yes?" he asked innocently.

"You don't have a photographic memory."

"Nnno..."

Mina tutted. "Right after Odd gave that speech about lying and bad habits, too."

"What about you? You were awake for that part?"

Even in the dark, Luc saw her stick her tongue out at him. "I was mostly asleep, at least."

"And I, at least, wasn't exactly lying."

"How so?"

Luc looked pleased with himself. "I did watch what keys he pushed on the keyboard. I saw him do it four different times, too; I could definitely scan and virtualize."

Mina stopped walking, taking Luc's hands to make him face her. "Luc. Promise me something."

"Anything."

"Don't do something stupid with all of this." When Luc started to brush her off as silly, she tugged his hands. "I mean it. You may as well be blood to me. If I lose you, I lose not just my best friend, but my whole family, too."

Luc pulled Mina into a hug. "Don't be like that. Mom and Dad love you."

"I know." Mina hugged him back. "I love them, too. But I share a brain with you, and I really can't afford to lose that many braincells if something happens."

Luc laughed. "Okay, okay. For the sake of your grey matter, I'll be careful."

"Thank you."

The siblings walked the rest of the way home in silence, hand in hand.

--#--#--#--#

Author's Note:

Sorry to everyone who started reading before chapter 3; apparently, FFN's document system erases the asterisk automatically for no apparent reason. Imagine my annoyance at discovering all my pagebreak markers had disappeared, leaving my poor readers at a total loss for the sudden scene transition...

It should be all fixed now, in any case. (Also fixed a minor-but-glaring error in chapter two; a couple friends and I all read that chapter over and over, and no one caught it until a reviewer said something.)

**A note for the next couple chapters:** The format will be alternating between two different event chains. Thought I'd give you a little heads up before anyone got confused.

Thanks again to Lea for beta-reading, and to the people who have reviewed, favorited, or added "The Ordinary World" to their Alert list. I'm really grateful, and it makes writing this story even more rewarding. I can't tell you how much it means to know you're enjoying it!


	5. The Prince's Apology

_"If you want to, I can save you_

_I can take you away from here_

_So lonely inside, so busy out there_

_And all you wanted was somebody who cares"_

_"All You Wanted", Michelle Branch_

"You're weird."

The boy looked affronted. "Excuse me?"

"Sorry," said the girl, "I didn't mean it like that. You're just... weird." She thought for a moment. "Like a prince, only stuck in a place where no one knows, and you can't say anything but you can't change your princely ways, either. It makes you kind of weird."

She was watching him with curious interest even as she spoke, seated on the low wall with her ankles crossed. He scowled haughtily at her.

"And so that must make you a princess," he said scornfully.

She made a face. "Ew, no. If I were a princess, I'd have to fall in love with you."

He wasn't sure if he should be satisfied or insulted by her distaste.

--#--

"Just push these buttons," Jeremie directed.

Mina hunt-and-pecked the keys. "Scanner Luc. ...How easy is it to screw this up?"

"Don't worry. He probably won't feel it if you do, and I'm pretty sure I could fix it be for he devirtualizes."

Over the headset, Mina heard Luc say "That doesn't inspire confidence, you know!"

She giggled. "Don't worry. I might not be as fast as you at memorizing, but at least I'm careful."

"My only saving grace..."

Mina made a mental note to smack Luc when he devirtualized.

--#--

He was scowling again -- he did that a lot, she had noticed -- hunching with his arms folded and his right shoe wedged into the sand. "They called me Team Freako."

"Us," she corrected. "They were yelling at both of us."

"I wouldn't be a Freako if you hadn't started following me around!" he snapped. He got up and ran about ten feet, then turned around. "This is all your fault, you stupid weirdo!"

She didn't watch as he ran away. "Sorry." She said it so quietly that he couldn't have possibly heard her. Then she started to sniffle, and scrubbed the tears off of her cheeks with a sleeve.

--#--

Mina whistled. "Nice duds, Luc."

"Call me Indy," he said, his virtualized self posing dramatically on the screen. His Lyoko couture did, indeed, involve a brown, brimmed hat and a bullwhip. Luc smiled, extraordinarily pleased with himself.

Jeremie raised an eyebrow. "I knew the virtualizer rendered appearance through unconscious desires, but... Indiana Jones?"

Giggling, Mina offered the best explanation she had. "He's watched those movies at least a hundred times. He knows the scripts backwards and forwards."

"Great, another ladies' man on the team. I somehow doubt 'visiting an archeological site' will pass as a good excuse when we need him on Lyoko."

"Hey," Luc interrupted. "Indiana Jones never had to make those excuses -- his girlfriends lived all over the planet anyway. And Mina, stop laughing."

Jeremie gently coaxed Mina out of the computer chair. "I think she'll need a few minutes," he said. "Let's continue with your skill test."

--#--

She sat on the swing of her swing set in the front yard, her toes never leaving the ground as she swayed forward and back. For two days, the Prince had ignored her completely. He'd ignored everyone else, too, but that much was normal. When he wasn't looking, she watched him. He was always looking down his nose at everyone, but once in a while he slipped. In those moments, she could see the jealousy.

Then he'd recover, or he'd felt her eyes on him, and she'd look away before they could make eye contact.

Now it was Saturday, and she was still alone on a swing set no one would share with her. Inside, her parents were talking loudly; some time earlier, her mother had said, "Go outside, sweetie, you should get some fresh air."

She wasn't stupid. She was six, and very astute. Her mother's words were kind, but they weren't a simple suggestion. The girl's parents didn't want her to see them fighting.

"Hey!"

Her head snapped up, startled by the voice. She flinched when she saw who it was.

"How'd you know where I live?" she asked.

The Prince didn't answer. She could only see his eyes and the bridge of his nose over the top of the picket fence around her home. He was scowling as usual, but this time he looked... embarrassed?

"Can I come in?" he asked.

She hesitated, then got off the swing and walked to the gate, unlatching it and holding it open for the Prince to enter.

For once, his princely image was faltering. He looked up at her house and around her front yard, taking it all in with a nervous authority.

"I like your yard," he said, as she clicked the gate shut behind him.

"Thanks."

"Lots of pretty flowers."

Roses lined the inside perimeter of the fence, and a variety of low-growing, flowering plants filled the garden bed in front of the house.

He turned to face her so suddenly that she jumped, and the intensity on his face scared her. He seemed to be holding his breath, then in a rush, he said, "I'm really sorry I said those things!" and produced a bouquet of flowers from behind his back. He almost hit her with them, he offered them so fast, holding them less than an inch from her face.

She looked from the flowers to the boy.

"Sorry," he said, not looking at her. "My mom said girls like flowers when you apologize. I didn't know you already had a garden full."

The girl hesitantly reached out and took the bouquet from him. It was wrapped in a week-old sheet of newspaper -- daisies and carnations and a few pink roses. She held the flowers to her face and inhaled, then she looked up. She smiled.

"Thank you."

For once, his scowl slipped away from his face to reveal something sweeter -- surprise, first, then a faint smile.

"I like your house," he said. "It's really big."

She nodded. Keening her ears for her parents -- they were no longer shouting -- she said, "Wanna see inside?"

--#--

Luc's whip had proven to be a pretty valuable weapon. Besides the impressive 'CRACK' sound he could make it do, it left scuff-marks on the trees and mountainsides in the mountain sector and gave off a purple electric charge to boot.

And, oh, did he enjoy demonstrating.

"Luc," Mina began. "I think you've picked on that tree enough. It knows who's boss. Would you please stop abusing it?"

"No way. This is really fun!"

Mina sighed, touching her hands to her temples and running her fingers through her hair.

"We should devirtualize him now, anyway," Jeremie said. "Lunch is almost over, and we have to get back to class soon."

"Just tell me the code," said Mina, "And I'll happily do it."

When Luc came up from the scanner room a minute later, he was sulking. "You always ruin my fun."

"I don't ruin it," Mina defended. "I just make sure you don't take it for granted."

"By spoiling it."

"By making sure you do more than play all the time."

Luc huffed. "You still spoil it."

Mina punched both his shoulders. "That's for being a brat. The other is for that crack about 'saving grace' earlier."

Luc smiled, and his attitude brightened a little. "You're living proof that video games make people violent."

"Then it's a good thing you like it when I beat up on you," Mina snipped.

Jeremie watched the exchange and shook his head. "Come on, you guys. We're going to be late for class."

They arrived back on the campus shortly before lunch ended, running into the rest of the Lyoko Warriors by the vending machines. Yumi looked from Mina to Luc stonily before abruptly dismissing herself to her classroom. Odd had told them how Yumi reacted to the news of their addition to the team; borderline screaming outrage had cooled to 'icy snow queen'.

Mina watched her go, dejected. "She's really mad at us, isn't she?"

"Well, you did kind of force yourselves into our group," Odd said. "Not that I mind, but Yumi's taken it a bit personally."

"It wasn't Mina's fault," Luc said defensively. "She can be mad at me all she wants; I'll charm her into being nice eventually, but Mina's hopeless."

"What do you mean, 'hopeless'?!"

"What do you mean, 'charm her'?!"

Luc and Mina stopped, mid-strike/defend, and looked at Ulrich. Ulrich, for his part, looked suddenly uncomfortable.

Before their mutual surprise-turned-keen-interest could be expressed verbally, the bell rang. Ulrich ignored their disappointed faces. "Let's go, class is about to start."

--#--

They were getting used to being called "Team Freako", but when one of their antagonists tried to push her, the Prince shoved back.

"Don't," she said. "You'll just get in trouble!"

He ignored her and kicked the kid who pushed her, then grabbed her arm and ran to the far end of the playground. They hid behind the biggest slide.

"I won't let them do that," he said stubbornly. "You shouldn't, either."

"I don't like fighting. They're too strong; if I just ignore them, they'll leave me alone."

He looked at her. "Do you believe that?"

She looked down. No, she didn't believe it.

"Hit me," he said. "Right there." He pointed to his upper arm.

"No way!"

"Do it, it's okay. I'm strong."

She made a fist, and demonstrated -- slowly -- a hitting motion. Her fingers just touched his shoulder.

"Like that, he said, "But faster. Okay?"

She nodded, but her face creased with worry. She pulled her arm back, squeezed her eyes shut, and swung.

After a moment, she opened one eye. "Are you okay?"

He looked from her, to her hand, and back. "That's it?" Then he burst out laughing.

She frowned grumpily. "I tried."

"That was really bad," he giggled.

Growling, she pulled back and swung at him again. He dodged backwards, still laughing.

"Stop moving!" she said. "How can I try if you keep moving?"

He stuck his tongue out at her.

With a growl, she lunged forward, little fist connecting with his face.

"Eek! Oh no, I'm sorry!"

The force of impact compounded with his backwards stepping had knocked him down. He sat up, touched his cheek, then looked at her.

And he beamed.

"That's a lot better!" He stood up, dusted himself off, and put a hand on her shoulder. "Hit like that, and they'll never mess with you again!"

She nodded, and decided not to mention there were tears in the eye above where she'd hit. No matter how much it hurt, he was really proud of her for doing it.

--#--

Although Ulrich hadn't said a word to Luc and Mina since the bell rang, they somehow knew all about his Yumi situation by the end of class. He suspected Odd's near-constant writing had something to do with it; after all, since when did Odd take notes?

"So that William guy... He's your rival in love and you still okayed him as a fellow --" Mina caught herself before saying anything revealing. "Friend?"

Ulrich shrugged defensively. "Well, yeah. Even I can't argue that he's a great... friend." His mouth burned, galled at using "William" and "friend" together in such a context.

"You have my sympathy," Luc told him. "Being dumped before you even get started is rough."

"I didn't get dumped."

Luc's brow furrowed, and he pulled out the three sheets of paper -- two of which were filled front and back -- of Odd's handwriting. He pointed to a spot on the second to last page and held it towards Mina.

"That does say 'dumped', right?"

She looked where his finger was pointing. "Yep. Definitely 'dumped'. 'Yumi dumped Ulrich before they actually had a date, and instead of arguing to change her mind and fighting for true love, Ulrich said --"

"Odd! I'm going to kill you!"

From somewhere down the hall, Odd's laughter floated to them. Picking the source was impossible, but Ulrich looked ready to try.

"You're right, though," Luc continued. "Odd and Mina? Exact same chicken-code. She had to translate most of that mess for me, and a few times even she was whispering 'Buhkawk'."


	6. Deciding Factors

_A fraction of a heartbeat _

_made us what we are_

_A brother and a sister_

_For better or for worse_

_Covenant, "Call The Ships To Port"_

The school office was big, but with four adults and two small children -- six and seven years old, both very nervously sitting in seats across the room from their parents -- it was a bit cramped.

"You must be Luc's parents," said one woman. She had long, black hair and deeply tanned skin. The man sitting next to her stared at the wall across from him, as if he were the one who had been sent to the principal's office and not his child.

The woman of the other couple nodded, smiling. "I'm sorry we haven't met before; did you know we live two blocks apart?"

Mina's mother looked surprised. "I didn't," she admitted.

"I was very surprised to find Luc had visited you a few weeks ago," Luc's mother went on. "He told me where he'd gone once he came home, of course. He's a very independent boy."

"I was just happy Mina had a visitor. She never talks about friends. She does tend to set herself apart from the group."

Luc's mother smiled. "Two of a kind, then. I'm somehow not surprised anymore that they were called here together." She held out a hand. "I'm Marianne."

"Celeste."

The two women shook hands.

"My husband speaks only a little English," Marianne explained. "We moved here from France so Luc could meet the American side of his family."

"My husband never liked the principal's office," said Celeste sheepishly. "Marcus, would you introduce yourself please?"

Marcus sat up, leaned towards Marianne, and shook her hand. "Marcus, as she said."

Marianne said something to her husband in French. He looked momentarily surprised, then smiled and leaned towards the other couple. "Luc," he said, taking Celeste's hand. "Enchantee."

"Oh, so your son is Luc junior?"

Marianne shook her head. "Not quite. He's named after his father, but his middle name is from me."

By the time they were called into the principal's office, Luc and Mina's mothers were fast becoming friends.

"I wanted to talk to you about your children's performance," the principal began, as they all took seats in front of her desk. Marianne began translating in hushed tones for her husband's sake. It was considerably more cramped in there than the office they'd waited in.

"Ordinarily, I would address parents individually, but it seems your children have been working together in this." The principal lifted a write-up form, squinting her eyes to read the writing. "There have been some concerns in the past from their teacher that they don't get along well with the other students. She's reprimanded a few of them for referring to Luc and Mina as..." She hesitated. "'Team Freako', it says... and although neither child has issued a complaint, their instructor suspects this persists when she's not in hearing range.

"With that in mind, please know that we are aware your children have been bullied. Because they haven't come to a teacher about it, we don't know to what extent. However." She set down the piece of paper. "This does not excuse the fact that they engaged in a schoolyard fist-fight against the students bullying them."

"Who won?" asked Celeste, then blushed; now was not the time to ask.

The principal tried to give her a stern look. "Your children. Two of the students went to the nurse's office with black eyes. Two more had been pushed to the ground and kicked. The actual events are a bit confused, but it seems your daughter has quite the right jab."

Celeste tried not to look pleased.

"Surely," said Marianne, "You're not blaming our children for this incident?"

The principal sighed. "Because circumstances suggest they were a target and not the instigators, I won't be writing this up. This does not excuse the fact that they were involved in a fight, and -- regardless of circumstances -- this violence does need to be addressed." Her professional tone changed to a more personal one. "Please talk to your children about fighting. Encourage them to speak to a teacher. I can't have them taking matters into their own hands like this. They're both very intelligent, but if they don't build good behavior patterns now it might jeopardize their futures."

They were dismissed shortly afterwards. Luc and Mina -- still seated in nervous silence in the first office -- stood up and followed them out. No one spoke until they got to the parking lot.

"So," said Marianne, "There was a fight."

Luc and Mina glanced at each other, then nodded.

Celeste asked, "Those other kids were picking on you?"

Again, they nodded.

"Did you make them cry?"

Mina looked at her mother in surprise, then nodded slowly.

"Good. Don't do it again."

Marianne agreed. "There are better ways to get back at bullies." She looked to Celeste, smiling. "Want to go for ice cream?"

--#--

Mina's cell rang minutes before dinner was about to start. The caller ID identified it as Odd.

"What's up?"

"XANA," he said. He was panting -- either he was running, or he'd just stopped. "We need someone to keep an eye out for a crazed baker with funny-looking eyes. Ulrich's looking for him, but in the meantime, me and Aelita are going to Lyoko."

"I'll tell Luc," Mina said. "One of us will join you at the factory in a few minutes."

She hung up the phone, flung open her bedroom door, and knocked anxiously on the door across the narrow hall.

"Luc?"

"It's open."

Mina let herself into Luc's room and closed the door quickly behind her.

"There's been an attack. They need you at the factory; I'm going to help Ulrich track down a XANAfied baker."

They ran downstairs, not bothering to hide the noise.

"I forgot something at school," Mina called. "Very important, need it for homework!"

"I'm going with her to chat with one of our friends while she takes forever to look for it!"

Mina reached behind her and hit him on the chest before running out the open doorway.

Marianne took a breath to call after them, then let it go without a word, smiling wistfully after them. The two were inseparable, after all; insisting Mina could do it alone just fine was like saying the tides didn't need the moon to flow.

And besides -- since when did they have friends outside themselves?

When they reached the park, Luc stopped. "Are you sure you wouldn't rather go to Lyoko?"

Mina's insides had been icy since Odd mentioned the place. "I'm sure. Go on; I'll talk to you when all this is over."

He touched her shoulder encouragingly, and only then did she realize how scared she looked. She smiled, rested her hand on his, and squeezed.

"I'll be fine," she promised. "See you in a little while."

Luc ran towards the manhole, and Mina dialed Ulrich.

"Backup's coming. Where are you?"

--#--

Mina had been sleeping in the Bouquet's spare bedroom for two months already. She'd stayed the night there several times over the previous six years, and practically lived there the rest of the time. During the last year and a half, she almost never went home until bedtime unless she had to.

Her parents were divorcing. Her father had explained they tried to stay together for her -- that it was right for a child to have two parents around -- but in the end, they just couldn't.

In a way, Mina blamed herself. If she'd actually been home to be cared for, maybe they could've done what they were trying so hard to do. But then, she never wanted to be home because her parents were always fighting. If they weren't fighting, then the atmosphere was too tense as they waited for the next argument.

It was never like that with the Bouquets. At Luc's house, his parents were warm and friendly, and they taught her to speak French. Marianne invited her to help cook, and everyone talked during dinner.

And there was Luc, of course, the only close friend she ever had. To all the other students, they were still the ill-fitting members of the class. In school, Mina spoke to Luc with what French she knew, and even if she didn't know all the right words, he understood. They could talk in class and no one would understand what they were saying. It separated them further from everyone, but to them, this was fine.

Mina's twelfth birthday passed, and she celebrated it with the Bouquets. When Marianne asked if she wanted her parents to come, she said no. "I don't want to choose," she said by way of explanation.

Marianne nodded sympathetically.

In the back yard later, after she told Luc, he said, "I don't think I could choose which of my parents I'd ask, either, if I only could choose one."

"It's not like that," Mina said hesitantly. "I don't want either of them."

Then she told him what her mother had said the last time she spoke to her: that Mina would have to choose which parent to live with, and when the divorce was final, she would live with that parent.

"Dad called and said the same thing. Both of them said what we'd do if I lived with them -- we'd go on vacations and I could have my own TV in my room... all sorts of stupid stuff."

"Wow," Luc said. "They don't know you at all."

That was when Mina started to cry. Luc put an arm around her shoulders.

"They don't know me at all," she said, and for the first time in their short lives, they both understood: only Luc really knew Mina, and only Mina really knew Luc.

The night of her birthday, after the remains of the cake had been put away and Luc's parents had gone to bed, Mina heard a knock on her door. She got up and opened it.

"Let's go out," Luc said, standing in the hall.

"Go where?"

He shrugged, but there was a mad gleam in his eye. "I don't know. Out. Anywhere. I'm too awake to stay inside."

Mina silently blamed the cola they'd had with dinner. "If we get caught, we'll be in so much trouble."

"We won't," he promised. "Please? I'll teach you some French swear words."

That got her attention. "Where'd you learn those?"

"Dad. He used to use them all the time, but when I asked he wouldn't tell me. I found a French dictionary, though, and when I couldn't find a couple of them in there I looked it up online." He grinned. "They're really cool."

Luc had convinced her to do things with him before; most of it had been limited to revenge on schoolyard bullies (their bullies or, sometimes, someone else's, if that person had been nice to them), or distracting a teacher while he grabbed for them both an extra snack. Never, though, had he suggested they'd leave the house after curfew. This was new territory altogether; Mina knew that, once this boundary was broken, there was no going back.

"It'll be a great way to end your twelfth birthday," Luc said. "Twelve years old, and a late-night expedition in search of adventure."

"And French swear words," she added. She was already pulling on her quietest shoes.

Luc went downstairs ahead of her, holding her jacket out so she could slip her arms in.

"I learned a new word," she whispered to him, as she adjusted the jacket around herself.

Opening the door as slowly and quietly as he could, Luc let her step outside first before closing it behind them again. "What's that?"

"Surrogate."

"What's it mean?"

"Well." Mina felt a little nervous. "It's like... you're my surrogate brother. You're not actually my brother, but..."

"I may as well be," Luc finished, smiling broadly at her.

It was probably then that Mina decided: If her parents made her choose, she would choose Luc.

--#--

The return to the past took Mina from narrowly dodging a slashing breadknife to laying in bed the morning of that same day, about an hour before her alarm went off.

She kicked the covers off and opened her bedroom door, not bothering to knock before opening the door to Luc's room and stepping inside.

"Good morning."

"Morning. It's really bizarre to go from electric-whipping a monster to waking up in your bed."

Mina sat down at the foot of Luc's bed.

"What are you thinking about?"

"Telling Mom who I wanted to live with."

Luc chuckled sleepily. They had been doing battle only minutes ago, but chronologically, they were barely awake. "That conversation was a show-stopper."

Mina hugged her knees. "I don't think she realized she and Dad weren't the only options to me."

"You got the best end of the deal," Luc confided. "What made you think about it?"

"I got a letter from her today." She paused. "Actually, I WILL get a letter from her today. It'll arrive this afternoon."

"What WILL it say?"

"That she loves me and misses me, and that she talks with Marianne once in a while. She wishes I'd email more often." She smiled half-heartedly. "When I first moved in with you, I still saw my real parents all the time."

"Do you miss them?"

"...A little. I love Mama and Papa, but sometimes I think about Mom and Dad." After a few quiet minutes, she added, "I don't regret being adopted by your family. I'm happier here. I'm just sad things didn't work with my parents."

Minutes passed. Just as Mina thought Luc had fallen asleep again, he said, "I'm glad we moved back to France."

"Why's that?"

"Now, we have friends as well as family."

"Heehee, yeah..."

When they got to school to go through the day all over again, both of them were smiling more than usual.

"You know what the best part of today will be?" Luc announced, as they approached Jeremie and Aelita. "We won't have to skip lunch again."

"I agree with you completely," said Jeremie.

"You know why I'm glad we moved to France?" Mina said suddenly, looking at Luc.

"Hm?"

She beamed. "We're finally with people who speak our language."

Luc looked momentarily surprised, then he burst out laughing. "You're absolutely right."

Jeremie and Aelita shared a look of confusion, then Aelita shrugged and smiled, as if to say, "Who knows?"


	7. Troubling Situations

Author's note: Judging by the number of places on the Skid's 'loading dock', I'm assuming the Skidbladnir has space for five Lyoko Warriors: Aelita in the center, with Ulrich, Yumi, Odd, and (eventually?) William in the NavSkids. I thought I'd make that clear before anyone comments to question my decision. If you're completely at a loss as to what I'm talking about, go to the site and watch one of the season 4 episodes when they're boarding the Skid.

---------------

"Sending coordinates," Jeremie said. "How are you doing, Aelita?"

"Everything's running smoothly," Aelita replied. "Coordinates received; inputting data."

The Skidbladnir began to move forward towards the Replika they had set out to investigate. Within the NavSkids, Yumi, Odd, Ulrich, and Luc watched the structures of the Digital Sea pass by.

"I promise," Luc said, "The next time we do this, Mina, you can take the last spot in the NavSkid. You wouldn't believe this view."

Mina said nothing, but Jeremie noticed her knuckles tighten their grip on the arm of his chair.

"I've never seen it up close," Jeremie offered, "But the view from here is pretty sweet, too."

Odd jumped in. "It's way different up close. You should check it out sometime, too, Einstein."

"Let's just focus on the mission for now," said Jeremie. "We're looking for a Replika, remember? Not debating whose turn it is."

Aelita gasped suddenly, and brought the Skid to a stop so quickly that everyone within jolted forward.

"Whoa! How about a little warning, next time?"

Aelita ignored Ulrich. "Look!" she commanded.

In the path of the Skidbladnir was a mangled shape, and for several seconds no one said anything. Then Yumi gasped, too.

"Oh no -- William!"

Yumi's recognition of the mass before them raised a collective horrified moan from the others. The body was twisted and broken, floating in the nothing-substance of the Digital Sea with barely identifiable parts drifting close by. The face was the only part still clearly recognizable, but the eyes were empty.

Mina swallowed hard. "That's the teammate XANA captured?"

Jeremie nodded, eyes wide. After what felt like an age, he sat forward. His voice wavered as he spoke. "I'm scanning the... debris, for any sign of..." he trailed off. There was no life left. If he found anything, it would be nothing more than data on what, exactly, had happened.

The Skid was silent, its inhabitants in shock. Aelita asked, "Should we try to bring him back home?"

"For what?" Ulrich asked bitterly. "We'd be questioned on how he died, and there's no way we can explain what happened."

"But..." Aelita sounded like she was on the verge of tears. "Shouldn't his death be acknowledged? Doesn't William deserve that much?"

No one knew what to say to that.

Jeremie gave a sudden, startling laugh. "It's okay!"

"Jeremie?"

"Don't worry, Aelita," he said, relief evident in his voice. "It's not William. It was never alive to begin with. It's a copy; there's no traces of his DNA -- it's just a lot of data."

The tension within the Skidbladnir broke. Luc, like Jeremie, laughed. "Oh man," he said. "I was really afraid I'd never actually meet the guy, at this rate."

"You're better off," Odd jested. "He's pretty cocky."

Ulrich and Yumi were considerably less amused. "How are you doing, Yumi?"

"I'm fine," she said -- a little too defensively. "Just surprised." She must have heard her tone, and softened it. "You?"

"Scared," Ulrich admitted. "That might not be the real one, but now I'm afraid the next one will be."

"There seems to be an element similar to DNA in the data," Jeremie said. "If I can just --"

The XANA alert sounded.

"Kongres, two o'clock," Aelita announced. "Dispatching NavSkids."

A pack of Kongres swam at them full tilt. As they reached the Skid, several of the fish-headed monsters broke away and attacked the copy-William, tearing it to pieces and eating what was left.

"Drat," said Jeremie. "XANA must have noticed we were out here and didn't want us to find any leftover information." He pounded his fist down on the arm of his chair, frustrated.

"Why would he want to make copies of someone he already has control over?" asked Mina, tearing her eyes away from the screen.

Jeremie sighed, sitting back again. "I don't know. I'll have to look over the data I DID manage to get and see if I can find any hints."

Meanwhile, the NaviSkid team was ripping through the pack of Kongres. The monsters were fast, but when there were so many of them, it was easier to land a hit.

"C'mon, Ugly!" Odd taunted. "Digital Sea-food for dinner tonight!"

"Sounds more like digital food-poisoning," Ulrich commented, firing off a blast that took out two at once.

They wiped out most of the pack, but Jeremie ordered them to regroup. "The power supply is low," he explained. "You'll need to come back and power up before we can continue this mission."

Odd sighed. "Man. Retreating sucks."

"He who fights and runs away..." Aelita began.

"Lives to be called a coward," countered Odd, irritably. "And being called a coward by a computer program is one of the most annoying things I can imagine."

Ulrich snickered. "Being called a coward by Sissy would be worse."

The crew retreated back to Lyoko and devirtualized, returning to the supercomputer room for a conference.

"It'll take me a few hours," Jeremie said, "But I got enough data from the first scan to hopefully understand what happened to the copy-William. If only we'd had three more minutes, I might have been able to run a full diagnostic..."

"Don't trouble yourself with that, Jeremie," soothed Aelita. "You can't help that those Kongres showed up."

"Thanks, Aelita." He smiled at her, then continued. "I don't know what XANA's up to, but this new event makes it that much clearer that we need to find William and bring him back -- fast. The situation has become urgent."

On the way through the sewer system back to the park, Luc caught up to Yumi. "Hey," he said, over the roar of skateboard wheels echoing in the tunnels. "I just wanted to say that you kicked major butt back there."

Yumi stopped moving to look at him. Luc, on his wheel-shoes, stopped as well.

"Don't get any ideas," she stated bluntly. "The only reason I accepted you and your sister into the Warriors is because you knew about it already anyway. I'd rather have you where I can keep an eye on you than risk letting you expose us. If I could take it back, I'd never have suggested inviting you and Whitehawk to sit with us at lunch."

She didn't give him any time to respond, zipping off again as soon as the last word left her mouth. Luc followed her with his eyes.

"So much for making peace," he mumbled. He sighed and began rolling forward again.

Mina, as soon as she noticed Luc had fallen behind, stopped on her own wheel-shoes to wait for him. He rolled up to her slowly, and she noticed his depressed expression immediately.

"She chewed you out good, didn't she?"

"How'd you know?"

"If the look on your face wasn't enough, the sound of her angry-voice echoing off the walls drove it home."

Luc winced. "So now everyone knows exactly why she's mad?"

Mina nodded, then began skating on down the walkway again. Luc matched his pace to hers.

"I'm really glad it wasn't you in the Skid today," Luc said. "I know I said it was cool and all, but I'd rather be the one to witness something like... that... instead of putting you through it. At least on the screen, it's not quite so vivid."

"That's very chivalrous of you," replied Mina courteously. "Thank you."

"I do what I can."

Yumi had sped down the hall at a pace she didn't know she could set, slowing only when she caught up to Odd, Ulrich, Aelita and Jeremie. No one said anything, which didn't seem suspicious until they got to the manhole that led to the park.

"What's wrong?"

"We could all hear you chewing out Luc," Ulrich said. "I know you don't love the idea of company, but you could lighten up a little."

Yumi took a breath to retort, but Odd spoke up first.

"They're part of the team, now, Yumi. They aren't bad people, and you okayed them, too. You don't have to love them, but acting like that is going too far."

Yumi hunched defensively and didn't say anything. When he put it that way, she knew Odd was right; she'd overreacted. Admitting it, though, was harder than recognizing it.

She hesitated outside the manhole, torn between apologizing and just going home. As she heard the distant sound of Mina and Luc -- moving much slower than the rest of them, talking quietly to each other -- coming closer, she decided she couldn't face him just yet. When Luc and Mina surfaced, Yumi stood on the far side of the group and didn't look up.

"We're going to the movies," Odd said. "Do you wanna come with us?"

Luc smiled, and carefully avoided looking a Yumi. "Thanks for asking, but we should get home. Mom and Dad wanted us to make dinner tonight, and if we don't get home early it'll be dinnertime before we're done arguing about what to make."

Odd looked impressed. "Wow, you guys cook?"

"Well," Mina began. "If the dinner bell was the fire alarm, then yes, we can cook."

The group split: Luc and Mina towards home, Aelita, Jeremie, Odd and Ulrich toward the school, and Yumi into the park itself. Her home was in the same direction as Luc and Mina, but she didn't want to walk with them. Instead, she wandered through the park. She needed time to think.

---------------

Jeremie arrived at breakfast with a slightly mad, sleep-deprived, but decidedly victorious gleam in his eye. Predictably, he'd spent most of the night at his computer. Ulrich, Odd, Yumi and Aelita braced themselves for whatever technical jargon he was about to spew at an hour when brains were not supposed to function.

"I went over the data I managed to pick up during last night's adventure," he said.

Aelita, the only one most capable of understanding computer speak, asked, "What'd you find?"

"First, I should explain that when someone is virtualized, they aren't turned into a bunch of ones and zeroes. It's a very complicated process of registering DNA as a computer program unto itself. This is why we can trace DNA on Lyoko or in the Digital Sea: we're effectively scanning for a program."

Everyone nodded.

"What we found yesterday wasn't a DNA program. It was an attempt at copying DNA and combining it with actual data. XANA is trying to replicate a human using a digital base -- something that could virtualize on Earth. He'd no longer need to possess people because he'd be the sole entity within the body. His own flesh-and-blood form."

There was a pause as the others considered this.

"Why would he need to do that, though?" Ulrich asked. "I mean, possessing someone is a lot more effective, isn't it? They're a lot more subtle than a person running around committing acts of violence."

Yumi remembered her first run-in with William after his XANAfication, when he hesitated before pushing her off the cliff. Then a later incident, when he remembered her long enough to stop his attack. XANA regained control, but Aelita caught up with them before he could devirtualize her.

She could definitely understand why XANA would want a body with no soul already inside.

"Hypothetically, XANA wouldn't have to put all his power into one body," Jeremie continued. "One could act as leader while the others would be the usual mindless zombies."

The warning bell that class would start soon began to ring. Jeremie looked up, startled, then began shoving breakfast into his mouth as fast as he could.

"Geez, man," Ulrich said. "You finally make it on time for breakfast, and you end up talking through it anyway."

"I could help you finish that," offered Odd.

Jeremie didn't stop eating, and glared angrily at Odd. "Touf mah food, Derra Robbia, an I will kill you."

---------------

Author's Note:

Eternal gratitude to LeaMarie for beta-reading and canon-checking for me, and to everyone who has reviewed. Knowing someone is reading and enjoying what I've written makes it all worthwhile!

Next update scheduled for Saturday, September 22.


	8. Added Complications

Luc and Mina, once again, arrived in class only barely in time. Before she was even sitting down, Odd was writing a note to her, detailing what Jeremie had said over breakfast. That is, if the explanation he gave could be called 'detailed'.

_Jeremie says XANA's trying to make a human version of himself so he can create a zombie army and commit acts of violence_, he summarized.

_Wow,_ Mina wrote back. _That's hardcore._

Luc, reading over her shoulder, took her pen and the piece of paper and added, _Don't you need grave dirt to make zombies?_

And so the written conversation degenerated into a debate over what causes zombification, and if XANA's possessions counted as zombie-making or a computer related variant.

Eventually, Ulrich caught sight of what they were writing, took the paper away from them, and passed it up to Jeremie.

Jeremie looked, for several seconds, as if all hope in the human race had been lost. Then he began writing a more technical explanation. When he passed it back to Mina and Luc, both of them did one slow nod and a silent pantomime of "Ohh!"

_So what do we do now?_ Mina wrote, starting on a fresh piece of paper.

_Search out where he's experimenting,_ Jeremie answered. _He destroyed that copy-William before I gathered enough information on how successful he's been. Just because that copy was a dud doesn't mean the rest weren't._

As he was tossing the note back to Mina, the teacher interrupted.

"Passing notes in class, Mr. Belpois?" she chided angrily. "From you? I'm shocked! Let me see that note."

"Uhm, no, ma'am, I can't --"

"Oh really?" She began reaching towards him. Mina shot out of her seat and snatched the note away, surprising everyone with her speed -- including, by the expression she wore, herself.

"Sorry, ma'am," she said. "I was making him write back to me. It's about boy problems. Big ones. Very embarrassing." Mina was blushing brightly enough to be believable. "I'd rather eat the note than have it read out loud in front of the class."

She raised the now crumpled ball of paper to her mouth, and had almost stuck it in when the teacher raised her hands and said, "Stop! Miss Whitehawk, that's enough. I believe you." She kept her hands up and took a step back, as if Mina were a dangerous individual posing a threat to someone's safety. "Don't eat the paper. Just set it down, and go back to your seat, and don't write anymore notes in my class. We'll forget about this whole incident."

Mina reluctantly lowered her hand and sat down again, cramming the paper ball into her pocket.

Several minutes later, when the teacher's back was turned, a small, folded piece of paper landed on her desk.

_That was awesome!_

She glanced at Odd. He smiled and gave her a thumbs up. She smiled back and stuck the note in her pocket as well.

---------------

During lunch on Wednesday, Jeremie suggested another trek through the Digital Sea.

"I want to scan for more of those copy-Williams. If there's one, there's bound to be several; the only way we can figure out what XANA is up to is by tracing them."

"Sounds good to me," Ulrich said, shrugging. "Anyone opposed?"

No one said anything.

"Great," said Jeremie. "Meet me at the factory after school today."

It wasn't very subtle for seven students to leave the grounds together, particularly when five were notorious rule-benders and the other two were fast developing the same reputation. Yumi, Odd, and Ulrich took the boiler room route, Jeremie and Luc took the park, and Aelita showed Mina the way by the Hermitage.

The elevator in the factory had become considerably more snug with so many people. With just five, it was cozy, but two more people meant elbow room had been made forfeit.

Jeremie and Mina disembarked at the supercomputer level, Mina having already decided she wasn't going to ride the Skid when they were searching for more mutilated William-bodies. Luc hadn't argued when she mentioned it that afternoon; he had dragged her into this situation, after all. He could at least protect her from the uglier aspects.

The rest of them virtualized and boarded the Skidbladnir. Trepidation mixed with excitement; the thought of seeing one of their classmates (or a very good impression of him) mangled almost beyond recognition didn't sit well with anyone. For once, though, they had the jump on XANA; if they could figure the plan out before XANA executed it, they were one step closer to defeating him.

Aelita steered the Skid into the Digital Sea and left Lyoko behind. "We're out, Jeremie," she announced. "Awaiting instructions."

"Launching data search."

Mina watched in fascination as Jeremie typed instructions into the computer, his eyes scanning over the information as if it really, truly made sense to him. She looked at the screen, and only saw lines and lines of code scrolling ever downward.

"Unreal," she whispered in awe.

After a few minutes minutes of reading scan results, Jeremie finally said, "I've found something. Sending you coordinates, Aelita."

"Got it." On Jeremie's screen, the Skid activated. "What did you find?"

"There's several discarded copy-Williams in that direction. As you get closer, I might be able to pick up more."

For a little while, they traveled in relative silence. Odd sighed in boredom, and Ulrich fidgeted. Luc fought the urge to ask, "Are we there yet?"

Yumi was the only NavSkid inhabitant who waited in tense stillness. Sunday's experience had opened the floodgates on guilt she had tried to smother; today's continuation didn't make her feel any more comfortable.

"I see something," Aelita said, interrupting the quietude. "Closing in."

Yumi closed her eyes.

"It's definitely another copy," Ulrich verified, and though he knew it was just scrambled data, he couldn't keep the sickened edge out of his voice.

Odd turned away, and when it passed Luc, he averted his eyes.

"From where you are, I'm detecting more of them. Bear right at two o'clock and keep going."

Aelita did as Jeremie ordered. Within minutes, they were seeing more pieces of William copies: some were mostly whole but twisted at bad angles, others were just pieces of a greater whole that was yards away or missing entirely. It was like passing the scene of a battle where nobody won, and the number of casualties increased as they went onward.

In the computer room, Mina turned away from the screen. Into her headset, she asked, "Luc? How are you doing?"

"Probably better than you," he said cheerfully. "Aren't you glad you're not here?"

"Just because I can't stomach it doesn't mean you can."

Luc grimaced. "Touché."

Aelita spoke up seconds later. "Jeremie, I'm seeing a Replika up ahead."

Jeremie patched in a visual of Aelita's perspective. Directly ahead was a Replika, and in orbit around it were more copy-Williams.

"It seems we've found the source," Jeremie said. "Prepare to enter."

Mina bit back the urge to ask "Prepare for what?" She knew better; not even Jeremie could predict what they would find within.

The passage into the Replika was different from usual. It acted more like a tunnel than entering a world unto itself – and it soon became clear that they hadn't entered into a sector at all.

"This isn't a Replika," Odd said. "It looks more like a... a..."

"A storage unit," Aelita filled in.

Clear boxes lined the interior walls, each a specimen case with a different William inside. Aelita steered the Skid slowly around the perimeter, bringing the ship as close as she dared to the cases outside, then pulled to a stop.

"What do you think, Jeremie?"

Odd spoke up before Jeremie could think of a response. "It looks like XANA's building a William army; one's been pretty effective, so a hundred or so would be enough to conquer the world."

"I don't think it's an army," Jeremie said slowly. "Something's not right."

As Odd sought the missing element, Yumi clued him in. "The faces," she said. "They're all expressing emotion."

Jeremie began scanning the room for information. "As soon as I'm done, head back to Lyoko. Even waiting to do a scan is too risky, but we need more than just hypotheses now."

"Do you detect any sign of the real William?" Ulrich prompted.

After a few seconds, Jeremie responded. "Nothing. It's all doubles, here."

"If 'double' means 'two', and 'triple' is 'three', what's 'a hundred'?" Odd mused.

"Centuple?" offered Luc.

"Too many," Ulrich supplied. "This is giving me the creeps."

When Jeremie gave the word, Aelita directed the Skid out of the storage Replika and headed back to Lyoko at breakneck speed. They hadn't engaged XANA for once, but what they had seen was far more troubling than a XANA attack had ever been.

---------------

Yumi couldn't sleep.

She looked over at the clock: two AM. It was, technically, Thursday morning, and though Wednesday afternoon's activity had worn her out emotionally, her thoughts wouldn't slow down.

The William storage Replika had been disturbing enough. Worse, though, had been Aelita's choice in stopping places. They couldn't have been there for more than fifteen, maybe twenty minutes, but the whole time, the window on Yumi's NavSkid had been eye level with a copy-William.

It was the copy-William expressing affection. Yumi knew it better than anyone; he'd looked at her with that face more often than any other. Until seeing it there, gazing happily out at her, she hadn't even realized just how much he liked her. Only XANA had controlled him into looking at her any other way.

And even XANA couldn't keep that up.

Guilt twisted in her chest as she rolled to face the wall, curling up and squeezing her pillow closer. She hadn't forgotten that first encounter with the Xanafied William: his sword-tip, pressed dangerously against her throat, forcing her to lean back over the cliff... and then the blade lowering. He stepped in, and his free hand lifted and caressed her cheek, first with the back of his knuckles and then his fingertips.

For a sparse few seconds, William was almost in control. He remembered her, and he remembered how much he cared. It was enough, at least, to lower the sword, and delay XANA in pushing her off the cliff until Odd was close enough to pull a last-minute save.

Even more recently -- just a few weeks before -- she had gotten through to him again. That time, it was more than just a hesitation; William was there, and he recognized who she was. He had forced himself away, and all Yumi wanted to do was reach out and reassure him they would get him back.

Neither of them had the strength to fight XANA off for long. Just as suddenly as he surfaced, William was lost again.

"I'm sorry, William," Yumi whispered into the dark. "I wish I knew how to save you."

---------------

_Next update scheduled for October 02, 2007._


	9. The Reluctant Warrior

When Odd and Ulrich went to retrieve Jeremie for breakfast on Thursday morning, they were surprised to see he was already awake. Then they recognized the familiar sight of Jeremie clicking away at the keyboard, and guessed he probably hadn't slept to begin with.

"Hey, Einstein," Odd started, "I know you're really enthusiastic about figuring out what XANA is up to, but you probably shouldn't lose so much sleep over it."

"Actually," said Jeremie, "I'm not trying to decipher what XANA's doing. I'm completely at a loss for that."

Odd and Ulrich exchanged glances, and Ulrich said, "Then why does it look like you haven't moved from you chair since yesterday afternoon?"

"I've been working on a debugging program." He sighed and sat back from the keyboard, rubbing his face with his hands. "If I can finish this, we have a chance at getting William back. Hypothetically, if we run it on him, it'll remove XANA -- the extraneous data -- from his mind."

"Like debugging his brain, huh? If we used it on Odd, do you think he'll be able to do his own homework?"

Jeremie smirked. "It's a debugger, not a fully functioning operating system."

He explained it again to the rest of the group during lunch that day. "I'll need a few more days before it's finished, but I'm close."

"Jeremie, perhaps you should give yourself a week?" Aelita suggested.

Jeremie was alarmed by the suggestion. "What? Why? The sooner we get this done, the sooner we have a shot at retrieving William!"

"Yes, Jeremie," Aelita said soothingly. "But you fell asleep in class several times today. In gym, no less."

"I didn't know it was possible to fall asleep in the middle of a basketball drill," Mina quipped. "I was impressed."

Aelita continued, "In other words, I think you should remember to sleep, too. If you sleep, it will also decrease the risk of making a typo in the program."

That was enough to convince him, though not happily.

Even so, on Tuesday of the following week he was looking pleased with himself.

"Please," Ulrich said, "Tell me you've actually slept sometime over the past few days."

"The program isn't finished," Jeremie conceded, "And I've actually been sleeping in my bed and not at my desk." His gaze flickered to Aelita. "Thanks to someone threatening to invest in a tazer if I wasn't in bed by one AM."

Aelita smiled sweetly. "You're welcome."

In spite of himself, Jeremie smiled. "There's only a little bit left to do, though. I can have it done by tomorrow, but I think it would be better to come up with a plan to enact on the weekend."

"What do we need a plan for?" Odd asked. "We find William, we use the debugger, we all go home happy."

"It's not that simple. We still need to draw William out."

When Odd only looked at him in confusion, Jeremie continued.

"The William entity we've been fighting against is a William controlled by XANA; in other words, XANA has control of fifty percent or more of William's actions. If we use the debugging program on him when he's like that, we'll be debugging XANA of William, not the other way around."

"So how do we get William to have a greater-than-half power?" Ulrich asked. "It's not like XANA is easy to share a body with."

"I'll do it," Yumi said automatically. When Ulrich looked at her in surprise, she started to blush. "It's just that, I think of all of us, I have the best chance at getting the real William out."

Ulrich looked ready to argue, but Jeremie cut him off. "Yumi's right. Of all of us, she has the strongest connection to William."

Yumi kept her eyes on Jeremie, ignoring the feeling of Ulrich watching her. "So what else do we need to do, Einstein?"

"We'll also need to keep him still during the process; I know it'll work on a stationary target, but running the debugger while he's trying to move would make it too hard to catch him. That smoke technique would make it impossible."

"That should be easy," Odd said. "Mina can do that."

"Then, as soon as William is back to normal, we need to destroy the William Replika before XANA can return to it. If this plan goes well, XANA will lose all the data he's collected as well as his test subject."

"And for once," Ulrich finished, "We'll have gotten a one-up on him."

Jeremie nodded. "Exactly."

Aelita's brow creased. "This sounds like it will take a lot of precision. What if something goes wrong?"

"Then we're in a lot of trouble," Jeremie answered. "Failure is not an option."

---------------

When classes finished for the day, Yumi happened to glance out the window and see the familiar forms of Aelita and Mina heading towards the park. She checked her phone for missed messages; there were no new notifications.

It took no time at all to decide to investigate. She followed after them at an easy pace, arriving in the computer room to find Aelita at the keyboard. On the screen, Mina was in mid-virtualization.

What's going on?" asked Yumi.

Aelita quickly covered the mouthpiece on the headset. "Yumi? What are you doing here?"

"I saw the two of you leaving the campus, even though I had no phonecalls saying XANA had attacked. What's up?"

"It's Mina," Aelita said reluctantly. "She caught up with me at lunch today. When they showed up to class, Odd told her what we'd discussed this morning. It seems she wants to practice her skills on Lyoko; she was very worried she wouldn't be good enough."

Yumi relaxed; at first, she'd thought Mina was up to something. Practicing her abilities was pretty tame.

"Scan me, too," she said. "I'll practice with her."

Hesitating, Aelita said, "I'm not sure that's a good idea. She didn't really want anyone else to know. I'm not sure she even told Luc."

"If she gets mad, tell her I insisted."

Before Aelita could argue, Yumi was in the elevator and on her way down to the scanners. Aelita released her hold on the mouthpiece. "Mina? I'm sorry, it seems we were followed..."

Yumi virtualized in the mountain sector to see a very bashful Mina avoiding eye contact.

"It's pretty suspicous to want to visit Lyoko all on your own. Is there a reason you want to be here alone?"

"Yes."

When Mina didn't give a reason, Yumi prompted her. "Why?"

Mina hesitated, then sighed. "Because I've only come here once. This is my second visit. I have no idea how to fight."

Yumi hadn't thought about it, but it was true; in the month since Mina and Luc had come into their lives, Yumi and Mina had never actually been there together.

"Why not?"

"Because I'm a coward."

The blunt statement came as a surprise, and Yumi wondered if Aelita was listening to this, too.

Mina continued: "The only reason I came in the first place was because I didn't know what I was getting into. It seemed cool at first, but then that monster attacked, and it was only dumb luck that I was able to do anything."

"But you did it," Yumi pointed out. "When it came down to it, you did what you needed to."

"You make it sound like it was a cool, last-second save. It wasn't." Mina sighed and sat down. "You weren't there. Ulrich had to shove me out of an attack's path because I was too shocked to dodge. When we ran into a bunch of those mutant fleas, he just told me to stay low until it was over. It was pathetic."

Yumi was on the verge of asking, "Then why are you still here?" but caught herself. She already knew: Luc.

Luc had been more active. He'd gone on the missions, he'd fought well, he was eager to explore. Mina had been the exact opposite, and Luc _had_ adamantly insisted she only got dragged along on his account. It seemed he was telling the truth.

"Your skill involves capturing someone, right?" Yumi said. "Practice on me."

Mina looked up, surprised.

"You came here to practice, didn't you?" Yumi held out a hand to pull Mina upright. "You can't practice if there's nothing to target."

Mina gingerly took Yumi's hand, and eeped when Yumi pulled her quickly to her feet. "I guess you're right..."

"Aelita?"

"Yes, Yumi?" came Aelita's gentle voice.

"Mina's going to practice her capture skill on me. If it looks like we're fighting each other, don't worry."

"Understood."

Yumi jogged backward a few paces, then stood still. "Okay. try it out."

Mina raised her hands in front of herself and pushed them forward, squeezing her eyes shut.

Nothing happened.

"That's okay," Yumi said, "Just try again. Maybe there's a voice command."

"Like Odd's arrows," added Aelita.

Mina thought for a moment. "Okay, maybe..." She took the same stance, but as she pushed forward, she said, "Captivate!"

Much to her surprise, a pillar of solid rock sprang out of the ground, trapping Yumi inside.

"Ack! Undo, delete!"

As she pulled her hands back, the rock pillar dropped away.

"Yumi? Are you okay?"

Yumi dusted herself off, stood up straight, and gave Mina a thumbs-up. "Just fine. It doesn't hurt; just makes it impossible to move."

"Thank goodness. It was only vines, before; I guess it's affected by what sector I'm in."

"Want to try again?"

Mina nodded. "Captivate!"

Again, the rock pillar shot up around Yumi. Mina lowered her hands; the pillar stayed where it was. After a moment of panic, she put her hands out again and drew them in towards her body. The pillar dropped away.

They practiced a few more times, then Yumi suggested trying a moving target and started running in circles, then cartwheeling. Mina gained a little more confidence as they played; by the end of the exercise, she was smiling.

When Aelita devirtualized them, Mina stopped Yumi before they got into the elevator.

"I just wanted to say thanks. You didn't have to do that for me, but having help really made this easier."

Yumi smiled. "Just helping a fellow warrior."

"I know, but... you didn't have to."

Yumi remembered what Odd had said almost a week before about Luc and Mina being part of the group -- with everyone's approval, including her own.

"You're part of the team," she said. "And I'm sorry; I haven't been the easiest person to get along with. After what happened with the last guy I asked to join us, let's just say I have a different perspective on adding new members."

"We'll get him back," Mina said resolutely. For the first time since they'd met, Mina looked genuinely confident. "Then you won't have to worry about him anymore."

"...Thanks, Mina."


	10. Execution of A Dangerous Plan

_Closing in, I hope that you make it_

_Closing in, I hope that you find your way_

_Imogen Heap, "Closing In"_

Mid-morning on Saturday, the Lyoko Warriors met in the factory just outside the elevator.

"Last minute review of the plan," Jeremie said. "Do you all remember how this works?"

"Mina, Luc and I are Team A and stay on Lyoko," Yumi began.

Luc nodded. "I'm cannon fodder, Yumi's the bait, and Mina stays hidden."

"Team B -- Odd, Ulrich, and I -- take the Skid into the Digital Sea," continued Aelita. "But only once William is confirmed to be on Lyoko, confronting Team A."

"Then Team B goes Ragnarok on the William Replika!" Odd declared, posed as if aiming a laser arrow and shooting.

Ulrich reminded him, "Only after William is captured. If we jump the gun, we ruin everything."

"And William isn't captured until XANA is out. We need William to surface, or the program will remove him and not XANA." Jeremie looked to Mina. "How are you feeling? Think you can handle it?"

Mina nodded. She wasn't smiling, and her jaw was clenched, but there wasn't a shadow of doubt in her eyes.

The group of them crammed into the elevator and began the descent to the supercomputer. Mina felt Luc take her hand and give it a squeeze. She squeezed back and didn't let go until they were at the scanners.

"Virtualizing to the ice sector," Jeremie said. "Get ready, everyone."

Yumi, Luc, and Mina virtualized, and immediately Mina hid in the nearest outcropping of ice slabs. Yumi and Luc faced in opposite directions, waiting for any sign of an incoming foe.

"S'pose there's a way to get his attention?" Luc asked, feigning a cheerful tone.

"Seek out the nearest monsters and kill, kill, kill." Yumi, for the first time, gave Luc a smile of camaraderie. "First one to make it to the center of the sector and back wins."

"You're on," he said.

Silently, Mina prayed they wouldn't forget their purpose -- or her.

Jeremie watched the proceedings on the screen. "As soon as they start provoking XANA, he'll make an appearance. Are you three ready to go?"

"Just say the word, Einstein," Odd said.

"Okay. Be careful, you three."

"Of course, Jeremie." Aelita rested a hand on his shoulder and smiled encouragingly. Jeremie blushed and smiled back before she and the remaining Warriors headed to the scanners.

Yumi and Luc had found three Bloks to terrorize, and were making fast work of them when Jeremie's omnipresent voice got their attention.

"Finish what you're doing and head back towards Mina," he ordered. "William is on the way!"

Everyone heard him and felt a chill run through their bodies. This was it.

Luc barely bothered to finish off the Blok he was fighting. He turned and ran back in Mina's direction, haphazardly lashing his whip behind him with the hope that he'd actually hit his target. He did -- barely -- and the Blok exploded. Yumi followed behind him, throwing a fan at the final Blok and hitting it dead-on. She could run faster than Luc, but only just, and had overtaken him by a yard when William appeared behind them. William gave a predatory growl, alerting them to his presence.

"Electrosnap!" Luc commanded, lashing out with his whip back towards William. The whip cracked powerfully. William dodged, but the whip knicked his shoulder. Luc grinned in satisfaction.

"Super-Smoke!"

Satisfaction switched instantly to surprise and trepidation as William turned into a black cloud and zoomed ahead of him, reforming directly in his path. He held his monstrous sword out, and Luc barely missed impaling himself on it by dropping into a somersault. He collided with William, knocking him to the ground.

While William's head spun, Luc gathered his bearings. Yumi was still running ahead, but with William's Super-Smoke ability, she'd need as much time as she could get.

He stood up and took a stance between William, Yumi, and ultimately Mina, and brandished his whip.

"You wanna go?" Luc cracked the whip menacingly. "Let's go."

Meanwhile, Jeremie had virtualized Team B for the second part of the plan on the farthest end of the ice sector from where Luc had engaged William.

"You have very little time," Jeremie said. "Luc's stalling him, but it won't be long before William takes him out and goes after Yumi. Move as fast as you can -- I'd rather have you get there and wait than not make it."

They boarded the Skid and departed in silence, as if not speaking might further hide their presence from XANA. It wasn't until they were in the Digital Sea that Aelita dared to speak again.

"We're on our way, Jeremie. We should be there in a few minutes."

"The sooner, the better."

Odd sighed and slouched down in his seat. "Man. I finally get up early on a Saturday, and what do I end up doing?"

"Save the world?" Ulrich offered.

"And to think I could be watching cartoons in the rec room," sulked Odd. "At least I know my moral fiber is up to par."

Ulrich rolled his eyes. "I'd give more credit to your morals if 'saving the world' took unquestionable priority over Saturday morning cartoons."

In spite of the serious situation they were in, Aelita giggled.

Jeremie hid a smile and switched his attention back to Lyoko, where Luc was clearly losing his battle against William. He had given up on actually trying to hit him and was now lashing his whip around him in a desperate attempt to keep William outside of stabbing distance. The tactic was failing; William turned himself into smoke and reappeared exactly opposite of where the whip had struck. He was slipping closer.

Luc fought not to panic and kept moving backwards. He needed to buy Yumi and the others some time, and as long as William was paying attention to him it was okay. He thought of Mina, still hiding up ahead, and whipped harder.

Then William vanished from his line of vision. He had time to turn his head left and right, but as he spun around, William's blade ripped through his midsection.

Luc sank to his knees, locking eyes with his opponent. William's eyes flickered with XANA's mark as he wrenched the blade to the side, smiling cruelly.

Then the Scanner chamber opened, and Luc tumbled to the floor. He groaned, clutching his stomach as the ghost-pain of being run through wore off. The only reason he forced himself back to his feet was the awareness that Mina was still on Lyoko. He made it to the elevator, and when he made it to the supercomputer room he had to lean on the arm of Jeremie's chair.

"You okay?" Jeremie asked.

Luc nodded. "Yeah, I'll be fine. Just a little surprised." The pain was almost gone, but the memory was still haunting him. "What's happening?"

"Team B is over half-way to the William Replika," Jeremie informed him. "William is going after Yumi, now, but he hasn't quite caught up."

Luc turned his attention to the screen, silently praying for Mina's safety.

From her hiding place, Mina could see Yumi walking backwards, hurling her fans like boomerangs at William. He swung his sword, and the fans bounced off and returned to Yumi. Mina held her breath anxiously as Yumi began the attack over again.

Yumi, for her part, was getting desperate. She remembered Jeremie's words -- "We need William to surface, or the program will remove him and not XANA" -- and racked her brain for what might work. A memory. Something big enough to wake William up, anything XANA wouldn't understand.

"William," she pleaded, "Please listen! You can fight this! Fighting XANA is what you promised to do when we let you in. Don't let him do this to you!"

William strode forward, closing the distance between them. Yumi flung a fan at him again; it hit his sword hand, and the blade dropped to the ground. He hardly seemed to notice, and kept walking.

He was smiling, but it was one of Xana's wicked smiles that held no joy. He was going to throttle her bare-handed if she didn't do something fast.

So she did the only thing she could think of -- the one thing XANA wouldn't be prepared for.

Yumi lunged forward, the speed and power of her impact knocking him back. It wasn't enough to knock him over, but it threw off his balance. Her arms wrapped around his chest, and she kissed him.

William's body locked up as William's soul and XANA fought for dominance. Yumi broke the kiss and held him tighter, whispering, "Please, William, don't give up. Trust us."

"...Yumi..."

Several yards away, Mina watched as William's arms slowly encircled Yumi's shoulders. "Jeremie," she said, hoping he could hear her quiet voice, "I'm going to capture him now. Are you ready?"

"Ready."

She took a breath to brace herself, and silently prayed the plan would work before issuing the command. "Captivate!"

Ice crystals shot up from the ground, encasing William and Yumi inside.

"Now, Jeremie!"

"Activating debugger." Even over the headset, Mina could make out the sound of him clicking the activation code. "Cross your fingers, everyone."

Mina crossed her fingers and what toes she could. Everything was very still as she left her hiding place. Within the crystal, she could just make out the frozen figures of Yumi and William, their dark shapes only barely distinguishable from each other. Mina moved close enough to look first at Yumi's face, and then William's.

Their expressions were the same: fear, desperation, and hope.

"It's William," Mina said, so softly she almost couldn't hear herself. "The real one."

_Next update scheduled for October 25, 2007._


	11. Bad Trip

Jeremie only barely supressed the urge to cheer. "Then the debugger should be working," he said excitedly. "Aelita?"

"Replika in sight," she said immediately. "Awaiting your command."

"Take the Skid in. As soon as the debugger is finished, destroy everything in sight."

"Roger that," said Odd, sounding more cheerful than he had all morning. "Finally, we get to do something!"

For what felt like hours, Mina watched the figures in the ice, her anxiety growing. "How much longer?" she asked.

"Not very long," Jeremie replied.

She didn't feel encouraged. He wasn't giving an exact number; for someone as particular as Jeremie, she wasn't sure that boded well.

And then, in the ice, something began to change. Mina took a few hesitant steps back, and then -- as she identified the black ooze that was definitely seeping off of William -- she turned and ran to grab the sword he had dropped. It was heavy, and she half-dragged, half-carried it back. When she returned, the ooze had sludged down to the level of William and Yumi's feet.

Mina could see the difference between their bodies, now; William's uniform was no longer black. He looked once more like the white knight he was supposed to be.

"Jeremie?" Mina called.

"I see it," he said. "Aelita, now!"

Aelita launched the NavSkids. With a "Woohoo!", Odd began unceremoniously targeting everything in sight. Ulrich took enough care to aim before firing.

An alarm began to sound within the Replika, and at the same time, the ooze at the base of the ice crystal began to tremble. The ice cracked, the black thing forced its way out, and with an unearthly howl it tumbled over itself towards the edge of the sector and into the digital sea.

"XANA is returning to the Replika," Mina announced immediately. "And he didn't sound happy."

Jeremie relayed this to Aelita, Odd, and Ulrich. "Hurry up, and get out as fast as possible!"

"Don't need to tell us twice," Ulrich said, launching three shots and hitting a different case with each one in rapid succession.

Mina released Yumi and William from the ice casing. They collapsed in a heap, and -- aware that XANA was still close -- Mina heaved the sword upward and stabbed through both of them, devirtualizing them instantly.

"Get me out of here, Jeremie," she pleaded.

"As you wish."

Mina released the sword and closed her eyes. Moments later, she could feel real air again as the scanner doors opened. She swayed and caught herself on the doorframe, shaking her head free of the leftover sensation of being on Lyoko.

Yumi and William were on the floor. Yumi was groaning, reaching her hand to her head. William was unconscious.

"You okay?" Mina asked.

"Ugh..." Yumi slowly sat up, squeezing her eyes shut. "Yeah, I think so. Man, that sword is a rough way to go."

"Sorry. It was the fastest thing on hand." She nodded towards William. "What should we do about him?"

That got Yumi's attention. Her eyes snapped open, and any residual effects she'd had from being devirtualized vanished. "It worked?"

"It worked," Mina confirmed, as Yumi turned around and saw for herself: William, in the flesh, deeply asleep on the floor of the scanner room.

Without hesitation, Yumi began shaking him awake. "William! William, it's me!"

He frowned, then his eyelids fluttered open. He looked around, disoriented. "Yumi? What...?"

She sighed in relief, hugged him, then realized what she was doing and let go.

"Can you stand up?"

William eased himself upright, then noticed Mina for the first time. "Who...?"

"Support team," Mina said simply, sticking out her hand. "Welcome back to planet Earth."

Confused, William took her hand and shook it.

"We can talk later," Yumi said. "Right now, we need to head upstairs."

The relief of the first few minutes back faded quickly as they entered the computer room and saw the tense expressions on Jeremie and Luc's faces.

"What's wrong?" asked Mina.

"Kongres," answered Jeremie. "A lot of them. And the Skid's low on power."

Mina helped Yumi settle William against the wall before looking at the screen. Both of their stomachs dropped.

The Skid was vastly outnumbered.

"Hey, guys?" Odd said, usually good-natured tone straining. "I don't think XANA's as pleased with our plan as we were."

Jeremie opened a window and began typing furiously. "Aelita, I'm sending you guys something that will hopefully help. It's a side project I've been working on, but it's unfinished; I stopped working on it to finish the debugging program." The sound of his fingers tapping the keys stopped as he hit the enter key. "Materializing it now."

Just ahead of the Skidbladnir, a metallic, oval object appeared. The Kongres turned to look at it.

"Move as far away as you can, then fire at it and run."

The NavSkids reconnected with the ship's main body, and Aelita slowly moved them to just within target range. From the NavSkids, Ulrich and Odd fired simultaneously.

"Move it!" Jeremie cried.

Aelita turned them around and sped back towards Lyoko. For the space of a breath, nothing happened -- and then a boom shook the Skid, causing it to rattle unnervingly.

Ulrich looked back the way they had come, and his eyes widened. "Oh my... Jeremie, what was that thing?"

"Something like a Digital Sea depth charge. Like I said, though, it was unfinished; I have no idea how well it worked."

"Too well," Ulrich said. "Waaay too well. Aelita, can this go any faster?"

Debris from the explosion had been flung far, and with greater speed than the Skid was capable of.

"Brace for impact!" Aelita ordered, gripping the steering controls. The wave of debris hit, and the Skid began to spin. Objects caught in the blast collided with the exterior, jolting everyone within.

Jeremie cringed at the sound of his companions screaming, sure that the others in the room could hear them, too.

Luc hunched over Jeremie's right shoulder, worry lines wrinkling his brow. "What can we do?"

"At this point..." Jeremie swallowed hard. "Nothing."

They watched the Skid spin out of control on the wave from the depth charge. As it began to slow down, Jeremie pulled up an area scan window.

"I'm going to find the nearest Replika," he explained. "As they slow down, they have a better chance of controlling the Skid -- but they'll only have a short time before all that outward motion reverses back in toward the source."

Yumi remembered seeing video footage of underwater explosions in history class. A large explosion would force everything near it outward, then suddenly pull it all back in. Her heart began to pound.

"Aelita," Jeremie said, "Can you hear me?"

Aelita made an indistinct sound, then, "Nnh... Jeremie..."

"Hold on, Aelita. There's a Replika not far from you. You'll be safe once you're inside, but you need to get there immediately, okay?"

In the Skid's main chamber, Aelita -- barely conscious -- gripped the controls and forced herself to pay attention. The impact and the spinning had taken its toll on her.

"Odd? Ulrich?"

When she heard no response, she felt like she'd swallowed a stone. Convincing herself they would be fine, she steered toward the coordinates Jeremie had patched in for her.

As she positioned the Skid in front of the Replika, the tugging sensation of the sea moving outward slowed considerably.

"There's no time," Jeremie urged. "Aelita, hurry!"

The gate opened. Aelita felt the Skid being pulled away, but she slammed the controls forward. The nose entered the gateway, and -- as if it would help -- Aelita leaned as far forward in the control cabin as she could.

Slowly, the Skid entered the channel into the Replika. The gate shut behind her, and the Skid -- no longer meeting resistance -- shot along the channel. Aelita eased up on the controls and sat back, exhausted.

The Skid approached the interior of the Replika and came to a stop at the edge of a Forest sector.

"Just wait a few minutes, Aelita," Jeremie encouraged her. "Then you can take the Skid back out and return to Lyoko."

Aelita made a small sound of acknowledgment, and closed her eyes. That call was a little too close; for the few minutes of rest she had, she took advantage of it.

A distant rumble, like thunder, reached her ears. Moments later, Jeremie explained: "That was the end of it. The digital sea should be calm again; you can come back, now."

"Mm," she answered indistinctly. She directed the Skid out of the sector and back towards home in silence.

At the docking point, Aelita gave the "Teleport" command to disembark. Odd and Ulrich appeared on the pad, unconscious. Exhausted, Aelita dropped to her knees.

"We're here, Jeremie."

"I'm devirtualizing you now. Aelita... You're amazing."

In spite of everything that had just happened, Aelita smiled.

Yumi, Mina, and Luc took the elevator down to the scanner room, arriving just as the doors slid open. Yumi hurried to Ulrich. He had fallen out of the scanner and wasn't moving; nor was Odd. Aelita was slumped in the back of her scanner, awake but utterly drained.

"Come on, Ulrich," Yumi urged. "Wake up, open your eyes..."

He gave a small moan, displeased.

"At least get up long enough to make it to your own bed," she pressed. "The floor is not for sleeping."

"It'll do," he muttered.

Yumi smiled in relief. "Okay, fine. But you'll miss lunch."

Mina, who had been shaking Odd, let go of him in surprise as he suddenly sat up.

"Lunch?"

She sighed. "Food. Of course. What else would drag you back from the brink of death?"

Luc lifted Aelita in his arms. "I'm going to join the bandwagon and say it's time to eat. Think Mom'll go bananas if we have this many friends over for lunch?"

Mina grinned. "She'd probably be so happy to see us with friends at all that it wouldn't matter."

Mina helped Odd to his feet and walked him to the elevator, and Yumi did the same for Ulrich. Luc carried Aelita, setting her down before the elevator opened again on the supercomputer room. He couldn't imagine Jeremie would take it well to see his fair lady in another man's arms.

He was glad of his own precaution a moment later, when the doors opened and Jeremie burst in, nearly tackling Aelita. She squeaked in surprise, then started to laugh and hug him back.

"Worried?" she asked.

"Yeah," he said honestly. "A lot."

When Jeremie finally stepped back, he was blushing crimson. "I'm going to shut down the tower powering the William clone at the school. Would someone go make sure he's not around a lot of people?"

"I'll do it," Luc volunteered. Everyone disembarked from the elevator, and Luc went up alone. He sent the elevator back down before leaving the factory.

Mina went to gather up the real William. He was staring into space in a dazed fashion, as though his mind weren't entirely with his body. Sympathetically, she guessed that spending months virtualized and out of control of your own body might have that effect.

"Hey," she said, waving a hand in front of his face. When he looked at her, she smiled. "Hungry?"

He stared blankly, then seemed to remember what food was. "I'm starving," he said, smiling weakly.

"Good. We're going to have lunch at my house. My name is Mina Whitehawk. It's nice to finally meet you."

She took his hand and pulled him upright, leading him towards the elevator.

"I'm William Dunbar." William was beginning to look more aware of his surroundings. "What happened?"

"You got cocky," Yumi said, though with considerably less venom than she could have used. "XANA's been using you like a doll for the last few months."

William stared in shock. "Months?! But what about school?"

Ulrich explained, "Jeremie programmed a clone to take your place." He decided to leave out the part where the clone was dumber than a box of rocks. William could deal with that shock later.

Aelita stood next to the chair at the computer screen. "Jeremie and I will join you when the William clone has been shut down," she said. "You go on ahead."

Ulrich pressed the button to take them up, and the elevator doors shut. As the elevator began to lift upwards, he said, "So what'd you do to get William back?"

Yumi and Mina looked at each other. Yumi -- and, to Mina's surprise, William -- blushed.

"Who cares?" Odd quipped, saving them all the embarrassment. "It worked, didn't it?"

"Absolutely," Mina agreed. "All that activity and panicking has worn me out." She pulled out her cellphone. "I'm calling home to warn Mom we'll have company for lunch. I somehow doubt we have enough to make sandwiches for eight... Twelve, including Odd's stomach."

They climbed out of the manhole in the park to find Luc walking towards them, William clone following behind. Mina smiled and waved.

"Called Mom. She's ordering food now."

"Great," he said. "I was just about to call Jeremie."

"Would you mind waiting up for him?" Mina requested.

Per usual, Odd couldn't resist a jab in Jeremie's direction. "It might be a little while. Aelita stayed down there with him, and right now they're probably..." He made a rather ridiculous kissy-face at the air. Mina giggled, but didn't miss the sight of Yumi blushing again. She wondered how long it would be until Ulrich noticed and made the connection.

Luc laughed. "I don't mind waiting. Just don't eat everything before we get there, okay?"

Mina promised, and began leading the rather large party towards home.

_The next update is scheduled for November 12, 2007._


	12. Frayed Nerves

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

Sorry for how late this is! It's National Novel Writing Month, and I got sucked into the original project I've been working on for that. I'll be doing regular updates again soon, hopefully. Thanks for being patient, and I hope you enjoy the next arc of the story!

T.R.

-----------------------

"Tower deactivated," Aelita announced.

"Return to the --"

Yumi cut Jeremie off, her tone deeply aggravated and bordering on a rare whine. "Do we have to return to the past?"

"We don't have to," Jeremie said, "But I'm fairly certain the gymnasium isn't going to magically repair on its own. Not to mention how many people will want to know why an unmanned military-grade helicopter crashed into its south wall."

Yumi groaned, and for a moment thought that it might be worth the risk -- maybe no one would notice. Much. Though no one said anything, the rest of the Lyoko Warriors felt exactly the same as Jeremie returned them to the past.

"Yay. Great." Yumi dropped her books on the courtyard bench unceremoniously before sitting down next to them, arms crossed and expression dark. "Friday morning _all over again_."

Luc and Mina walked up just in time to hear her.

"It's not so bad," Mina said, trying to sound cheerful. "Luc and I have actually been on time for class all week."

"That's because we've had to do a return every day since Sunday. XANA's attacked _every stupid day_." It was clear from her voice that Yumi's usually even temper had been damaged by the stressful week.

"Tell me about it," said Odd. "Instead of five, we've had ten days in a row of school. Ten days with no weekend..." For a moment, even Odd's notoriously relaxed manner seemed anxious. "And only five evenings to stay up playing videogames!"

"XANA sure knows how to get to you, Odd," Ulrich remarked. "I know what you mean, though; we haven't been getting enough sleep to make up for this."

Aelita was proving his point by nodding off against Jeremie's shoulder. Jeremie was doing a valiant job of acting like this was perfectly normal, but couldn't keep himself from blushing anyway. "Considering how little effect the attacks have had, I don't think XANA's actually up to anything; he's just trying to wear us out."

"It's working," Yumi muttered.

"Which means we have to stay on our toes," Jeremie countered. "A return to the past will fix any damage done to the school, but the stress is bad for our health." He looked worriedly towards the now very asleep Aelita. "If we aren't well rested, it increases the chances of somebody slipping up on Lyoko."

Odd grinned. "So if we fall asleep in class, we're justified, right? In the name of saving the world, that is."

"That's not quite what I meant..."

"At least if he attacks tomorrow," Odd continued, "It's a Saturday. We can return to the past and we'll have Saturday all over again to sleep through."

"Or, I don't know, study," Ulrich suggested. "At this rate, having the extra time to review homework isn't doing anything if we're all too tired to pay attention."

The bell rang, and everyone groaned.

"We have a pop quiz in math today," Luc said ruefully. "If I study during science, I might pass with a D."

Mina sighed. "Drat. That's what I was planning to do."

"I'll take the science notes if you can write an outline of the math information for me," Ulrich offered. "I'll need all the help I can get for that."

William crossed the courtyard towards his classroom, but only waved from a distance. He stopped near the open air hallway, waiting for Yumi.

"Has he said anything about how long this week's been?" Luc asked, addressing Yumi.

She shook her head. "I think he's blames himself for it, but since he hasn't been fighting with us, he doesn't want to complain either." She sighed, collected her things, and started walking towards him. "Catch you guys later."

Ulrich watched her go. Mina watched his expression, deciphering for herself what it meant. Outside of the factory, Yumi hadn't spent much time with the rest of the group; Ulrich, more than anyone, had felt her absence.

As the rest of them walked to class, Mina asked quietly, "Do you miss her?"

Ulrich blanched. "What? No. What are you talking about?"

With a shrug, Mina said, "I dunno. You just look sad every time she walks away."

Ulrich opened his mouth to respond, but couldn't think of a word to say and shut it again. By everyone else's reckoning, it had only been five school days; by theirs, it had been ten. Ten mornings of Mina watching Ulrich watching Yumi walk away, ten lunch breaks where Yumi ate somewhere else alone, ten afternoons where Yumi went straight home from school. Of course Mina had noticed.

Ulrich and Mina walked side by side a few paces longer, then Mina jogged to catch up with Luc. Ulrich watched the two of them look at each other and smile. No matter how long the week had been or how tired they were, the siblings could still do that much as if it was life as usual.

A quick look at the rest of his friends showed no smiles, just exhaustion. Ulrich sighed. He was too tired to even feign cheerfulness.

---------------

By Saturday afternoon, Odd was driving Ulrich crazy. In spite of his devotion to the idea of sleeping all day, Odd had woken at nine and proceeded to dig through every drawer and closet on his side of the room at least six times.

After groggily demanding that Odd explain himself, Odd informed him: "I'm just trying to tidy up. I was wondering what the room would look like if it were perfectly clean. I figure, if XANA's going to attack anyway, I can put everything away now and just get an idea of how it'd look. We return to the past, it's back to its usual mess, and I'll still be able to find everything according to my organization system."

Ulrich hurled his pillow at him. "You couldn't wait until after I'd woken up? Don't you have a videogame you could play? Or a girlfriend you could flirt with?"

"Videogames would be a waste of time if XANA attacks. I'd just have to go back and redo it anyway."

Ulrich got up, grabbed his pillow, and hurled it at Odd again.

"Hey!"

But by six that evening, everything was still peaceful. To burn off the anxious energy, Ulrich spent two hours practicing Pencak Silat in the park. He called Jeremie to see if anything had happened -- if, maybe, his cell phone had lost signal and he missed a message. Jeremie assured him everything was fine.

Ulrich thought about calling Yumi, and felt his stomach knot up. Outside of battle, she'd barely talked to him at all. She hadn't said much to anyone else, either, but a paranoid voice insisted she was ignoring him. Since William's return, she'd been unusually distant. He didn't want to think of how the facts connected; none of the connections fell in his favor.

In spite of this, he found himself walking past her house on the opposite side of the street. Part of him hoped she might be outside, also out for a walk or just enjoying the weather, or any other excuse to accidentally bump into each other. Instead, he saw William -- ever bolder than Ulrich, actually in front of the gate -- staring up at the window to Yumi's room. A few moments later, he skateboarded slowly away.

Ulrich kept walking. He was going to miss dinner, but he suddenly wasn't hungry anymore.

---------------

Nothing. All weekend, there had been no sign of XANA. The calm seemed to have been harder on the group than if he'd attacked; on Monday morning, everyone met up with haunted looks on their faces. They had spent all weekend waiting for a strike that never came.

"He's definitely planning something," Jeremie stated. "Last week was just a temper tantrum; now, he's plotting something big."

"Gee, thanks, Einstein," Ulrich said darkly, and for once, Jeremie's pet name came out of his mouth oozing sarcasm. "I hadn't figured."

Jeremie looked hurt. "You don't need to be such a jerk, Ulrich. You weren't the one in the factory all weekend scanning for any sign of trouble."

"You do that all the time anyway. Don't try to make it sound like this is new."

"Both of you settle down," Yumi ordered. "Picking fights with each other isn't going to make XANA attack any sooner."

Ulrich looked away silently, crossing his arms and glaring into the middle distance.

Odd cringed. "You make it sound so inevitable."

"You know as well as I do that it's a matter of 'when'. It's not like some avatar of justice is going to come out of nowhere and destroy him for us."

"You never know..."

Yumi fixed him with an angry stare. "Odd, we ARE the avatars of justice. And we're failing, for the record."

"We're not failing," insisted Aelita. "We haven't won, but we're holding our own, aren't we?"

Yumi argued, "But we're always on the defensive. We need to find the source and destroy it already so we can get back to our regularly scheduled lives."

"But until we can destroy him we need to maintain a solid defensive line." Jeremie sighed. "Look, I know this is hard, but we aren't failing and we aren't just maintaining a position. If XANA's actions last week were any evidence, I'd say we gained a lot of ground by getting William back."

Yumi looked for a moment like she was going to say something about that as well, but she stopped herself and looked away. "Whatever. I'm going to class."

The bell hadn't rung yet -- there were still several minutes left until it did -- but no one stopped her. When William walked past a little while later, he looked momentarily disappointed before giving his now-customary wave and kept walking.

Ulrich dismissed himself moments later, and Odd followed a few paces behind, leaving Jeremie and Aelita alone. Jeremie watched them, unsure of what to say that would call them back.

Aelita touched his arm. "It's okay, Jeremie. Everyone's just really stressed out right now." She gave him a light squeeze. "And I'm sure Ulrich didn't mean to hurt your feelings."

"It did anyway."

Lowering her hand to his, she took it and squeezed. Jeremie looked up at her, and for the first time that day managed a small, genuine smile and squeezed back.


	13. Confrontation, Part I

If Sissi had a knack for anything, it would invariably be her ability to detect drama, particularly when it related to Ulrich and his friends. This knack included a metaphoric fishing line, hook, and a skill for choosing bait.

The only problem, then, was deciding which fish to tempt it with.

William made himself an easy target. He was still avoiding the others, and he never could find Yumi outside of class. As he stood in the lunchroom deciding where to sit, Sissi cast her line.

"William, so good to see you!"

"Uh, hi?" William tried not to look surprised; perhaps his clone had -- somehow, miraculously -- made friends with Sissi.

"Where are you eating today? I've noticed you wander off by yourself a lot."

Whatever the relationship his clone and Sissi had formed, there was no way he planned on sitting near her during lunch. "Away. Uhm. Somewhere. Alone. I didn't do so well on the last test I took, and I wanted to study before retaking it. Alone," he repeated.

Sissi was not deterred. "Did you and Yumi have an argument?" she pried nosily. "You two have been so close over the last couple months, walking each other to class all the time... Keeping an eye out for each other... Everyone thought you were dating." She smirked. "Trouble in paradise?"

"What? Uhm, no, we..." William stuttered for an explanation, mind racing. Two thoughts came most clearly: The first was a mental note to ask Jeremie just what he'd programmed his alternate to do that had Yumi hanging around all the time. The second was disbelief. His double was friendlier with Yumi than he -- the real thing -- was.

"Life," he finally said, "Is really unfair."

With that, he left a puzzled Sissi to find a new target.

William went outside into the comfortably cool weather and chose a spot under a tree. From there, at least, he might catch sight of Yumi if she was eating somewhere other than the cafeteria.

He wanted to see her. He wanted to talk to her, though he didn't know what to say; bringing up the kiss was too awkward, and asking what he'd missed... Well. That would be a lot of ground to cover. Lately, Yumi didn't look like she wanted to talk about anything.

Considering how many times they had all returned to the past the week before, he couldn't blame her. William hadn't been an active participant in the battles, but going through that whole week twice had been rough.

Still, it gave him time to catch up a little on his classes. He could spend one class period paying attention to the lesson, and the next time around read over 'his' notes from the last couple months.

Across the courtyard, he saw Luc and Mina exit the lunch room and take a seat on a bench together. He could only just make out the sound of their voices, talking amiably with each other.

Every morning, William had seen the strain on the other Warriors growing greater; the two newest members, however -- at least, around each other -- looked to be holding up rather well.

_Then again,_ William thought, _Wouldn't they be in the lunchroom if everything were fine?_

Not like he could criticize; he wasn't exactly opening lines of communication.

Even so, he finished the lunch break alone. When he saw Yumi walking towards their next class, he didn't run to catch up with her, either. For the time being, he decided, silence was okay.

---------------

"They're falling apart," Mina said.

"I know," Luc replied. "Would you check the rice?"

Mina removed the lid from the rice pot, stirring the water with a wooden spoon. "We've only been part of their group for a month, and already it's going sour."

"It's not 'already' going sour. It's just hit a bump. Last week was hard." He sucked in a breath, jerking his free hand from the cutting board.

"Cut yourself?"

"Almost. I missed."

"Shame."

He stuck his tongue out at Mina.

She smiled back before continuing the conversation. "What do we do to fix it, then?"

"Stop them from killing each other, for one." He finished chopping a carrot, dumped the slices into another pot of water, and set in on a zucchini. "Which means they all need to calm down."

"Oh yes, because that'll be so easy..." Mina opened the oven to check the roast chicken, then shut it again. She sighed. "It'd help if we actually knew them better. Then we might know what to do."

Luc shrugged. "We'll just have to be patient. Getting to know someone isn't an overnight thing. If we can do it for our enemies, we can do it for our friends."

"Enemies were easier, though." Mina took the zucchini Luc was chopping and dumped the slices in the frying pan. "Revenge is easier than repair."

Luc nodded. "You're good at figuring those things out, though. It'll be just like grade school, except with fewer people crying."

Mina giggled. "True. If there's a tactical means for revenge, there's a tactical approach to team-building."

The smoke detector began to beep. Without batting an eye, Mina grabbed the nearest chair and a broom handle to reach the off button, and Luc opened the oven door and took out the chicken.

Marianne entered the kitchen moments later. "Why is it that you two can't cook without the alarm going off?"

Luc shrugged. "I don't know. Nothing's ever burnt that badly."

She sighed. "I'll help you set the table. Mina, go tell Papa it's time for supper; he can't hear the 'dinner bell' from the study."

Their conversation dropped for the rest of dinner, and didn't resume until after their parents had gone to bed. When they heard the bedroom door shut, they picked it up as if the time between was a minor interruption.

"I think," Mina said, "That we're not helping matters by avoiding them at lunch."

"It would probably help if we actually got to school early, too." Luc looked just a bit disappointed by this prospect. "No late night jaunts through the neighborhood."

Mina sighed. "Probably for the best. It's a miracle we haven't gotten caught."

Luc sat in silent contemplation of this for a little while, then said, "What if we just give it up for a little while? Until everyone's calmed down."

"Would it really be that bad to go to bed early?"

Mina laughed when Luc nodded. "I can't sleep before midnight; I need something to do."

"Well I can," she said. "And if you're going to be up late anyway, I should definitely go to bed early so that one of us is awake to get the other out of bed. Especially if we're going to attempt that 'early morning' thing you mentioned." She spoke of 'early morning' as if it was a foreign concept. If their usual morning routine was any evidence, it really was.

---------------

Odd and Ulrich left the dining hall on Tuesday morning in silence. Their usually companionable attitudes were somber, and had been for days; though they walked side by side, they hardly seemed aware of each other.

Odd brightened when Luc and Mina joined them.

"Hey, Dollface," he said, addressing Mina. "What dragged you out of bed so early?"

"A death wish," she muttered. "Luc's, in fact."

Luc looked smug. "Who was going to wake up whom early this morning?"

She punched his shoulder half-heartedly. "You gave me your insomnia. You did it on purpose, too, I bet. Jerk."

For the first time in days, Mina saw Odd laugh. The sound seemed to break the tension in Ulrich, too, and he gave a small smile.

"Where are Jeremie and Aelita?" asked Luc.

Odd, revitalized by humor, said, "Oh, you know, probably romancing each other in computer lingo. 'Aelita, your eyes make my heart burn like an overloaded processor'...!"

"Only your brain would overload that fast, Odd!"

Odd cringed and turned to see Aelita approaching, glaring at him, with Jeremie following just behind her. "Uh..."

She broke into a devious smile. "I'm honored to know I have such a debilitating effect on your mental capacities. I'll have to turn you down, though; Jeremie's processor is the only one fast enough to keep up with me."

"To say nothing of his hard drive," Mina quipped.

"Oh, of course! If nothing else, I love him for his hard drive."

Jeremie blushed. "Uhm, could you two -- uh, stop?"

"But why, Jeremie?" asked Aelita, now having too much fun with her and Mina's game. "Don't be ashamed of your hard drive -- it's very nice."

Jeremie swallowed, and the blush on his cheeks grew even brighter. "Because if you don't stop, Odd might die laughing."

Odd was doubled over, hands clutching his sides. "Oh man, Einstein, don't stop her now! I haven't laughed this hard in months!"

---------------

At lunch, Yumi made an appearance long enough to find William and follow him out to the courtyard. She had some questions for him, none of which they could discuss in the cafeteria.

William, upon noticing her, looked startled but smiled.

"Hey, Yumi. Haven't seen you lately. I was wondering what happened to you."

"I've been spending a lot of time alone," she told him. "Thinking."

"Oh, really? What about?"

She took the blunt approach. "About how to end this mess with XANA."

At the mention of that name, William paled.

"William, if you know anything, please -- you have to tell us."

He started to shake his head slowly. "I... I don't..."

"But you must," Yumi pressed. "You've been closer to him than any of us; if anyone has answers on how to defeat him once and for all, it's you."

His brow creased, and -- worryingly -- his eyes began to glaze over. "Yumi," he begged, "Please, don't ask me this. Anything but this."

Yumi persisted. "I know this is hard, William, but if you can think of any small clue, we'll be that much closer to being free of him forever. Don't you want that?"

William nodded. "More than anything, but..." He shivered, and his eyes didn't seem to be focusing on anything. "You don't know what you're asking of me. I can't..."

He turned and started walking away at a brisk pace.

"William!"

Yumi started to follow, but a hand on her shoulder startled her and she turned around. Luc was standing there, and as she faced him, she saw Mina dart off after William.

"What?" she demanded. "Eavesdropping on other people's conversations again?"

"Afraid so," Luc admitted. "I saw you following him out of the cafeteria. Did you know that you get this really scary look on your face when you're determined to do something?"

"Did you know you're annoying?" The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them. She remembered once again Odd's words about being teammates, but right then, she was finding it hard to care.

Luc smiled patiently. "It's a blessing of living with Mina: I get lots of practice." When Yumi glared at him and looked away, he added, "I know we got off to a bad start, but we're in this together. You don't have to love me, but it would help if you could tolerate me." He smirked. "Or, you know, talk to me out on the battlefield once in a while."

Yumi sighed. "You blackmailed your way in. I still haven't forgotten that. By pushing in where you don't belong, you jeopardized our whole operation."

"Since Mina and I joined up, I'd say things have been going pretty well. Last week could've been better, yes... But your dear friend William is back. Jeremie might not have been able to figure out everything, but he has the data on what XANA was planning with that Replika we destroyed." He leaned against the nearest tree. "I'd say that's miles better than you were doing a couple weeks ago."

Yumi sat down against the roots of a neighboring tree, resting her arms on her knees. "It feels like one step forward and two steps back," she confessed. "We've got William, but he's not fighting and he's not talking, and Jeremie's still clueless about the Replika data which is just as good as not having it in the first place."

"Celebrate your victories," Luc said. "Jeremie's competent; not knowing now doesn't mean he won't figure it out soon. And William isn't out of commission forever."

"I know." Yumi sighed again. The aggression that had been fueling her vanished, and Luc saw a flicker of guilt in her eyes. "I just wish he'd be back to his old self already."

---------------

Mina followed William across the campus and into the park, where he finally stopped in a clearing and sat down. Mina approached slowly and sat a few feet away.

In spite of a dazed quality to his attitude, William had seemed pretty normal during the victory lunch when he returned to Earth. Mina compared who she had met then with the boy she saw now. Any self-assuredness had left him, and she hadn't seen a sincere smile since that first day. He looked like he was on the verge of tears.

It seemed like a stupid question, but Mina asked anyway. "What's wrong?"

"Everything." He was quiet for almost a minute. Mina said nothing and sat still, waiting. Finally, he continued, "I don't know what to do. I wanted to help her in this fight against an evil she couldn't defeat alone. I wanted to be the one who saved the day for her. Instead, I..."

William's eyes turned glassy again, his memories clouding his vision, and he unconsciously swayed backwards from a phantom enemy. Mina moved closer to him and touched his shoulder. He flinched and snapped back to reality.

"I know we've barely met," Mina said, "But I'm one of your teammates, and I'll do whatever I can to help." She gave him a half smile. "To be honest, I'm not much good for fighting, either. I can listen to you, though."

William looked away, and Mina withdrew her hand and sat on the grass next to him. After several minutes, he said, "I'm sorry you have to see me like this. I'm a lot cooler, normally."

"With hair like that?" She grinned playfully. "Of course you are."

William chuckled and looked a little pleased with himself. "This whole experience has me shaken up. I was fine until I went to bed that first night back, and then..." He started to trail off again, and caught himself. "I've been having nightmares," he finished abruptly.

"What about?"

He took a slow breath before he answered. "Floating in darkness. It's not like being asleep and not dreaming, though. It's definitely a dream, and this voice is telling me what to do. I can't remember what," he added quickly, "But I remember thinking I had to do it. They weren't good things, either." His expression darkened, and he stopped talking.

"Were they dreams?" Mina asked. "Definitely? Or maybe memories?"

William didn't respond, but he looked up at her. She could read his expression clearer than printed word: he was dreaming only in flashbacks, and had been since he returned.

Before she could catch herself, Mina asked, "Were you scared?"

She felt guilty immediately, because William actually looked ashamed of himself when he nodded.

"I don't blame you," she hastened to add. "I would have been terrified, if I were in that situation."

Shame gave way to frustration. "I wanted to be a hero so much, and instead I was a useless coward."

"Stop that," Mina chastised. "Yumi was right about one thing: You've gotten closer to XANA than any of us, and you survived. If anyone's going to lead us to victory, it's you -- but only when you can handle it." She smiled again. "So don't let Yumi get to you. I think she's trying to avenge you just as much as she's eager to be done with all of this."

William relaxed, and he smiled -- for a moment, he was free of the events that haunted him.

Mina stood up and offered a hand to him. "We'd better hurry back before someone notices we've left," she said. "Lunch should be ending soon."

They walked back together in a much calmer, easier silence than before. No one greeted them in the courtyard -- Yumi and Luc were gone -- but (Mina thought) that was probably for the best; William would need more time before he could talk to Yumi again.


	14. Confrontation, Part II

As soon as the final bell rang, Yumi hurried from the campus towards home. She barely stopped long enough to greet her mother and headed to her room, announcing she was doing homework before anyone asked.

Opening her schoolbag, she pulled out the first textbook she grabbed, turned it to a random page, and sat down at her desk. She didn't actually look at the pages, or even turn on her desk light; instead, she stared off into space the same way she had been doing every afternoon for over a week.

If she wasn't careful, her grades were going to slip. Yumi knew it, but if she didn't take the time out every day to reevaluate her thoughts, there was no point in trying to read the material in her book. She wouldn't remember any of it anyway.

Yumi felt like a liar. She hadn't lied, exactly -- but she hadn't told the truth, and as far as she could tell, no one else had told Ulrich what she'd done to pull William out of XANA's grasp. Not being honest felt just as bad.

It wasn't Ulrich's business. They weren't dating. She'd established it herself, when dealing with the jealousy issues had gotten to be too much. But declaring 'friends only' hadn't dispersed the jealousy, only forced it into silence. Ulrich wouldn't respond well when he found out about the kiss -- but knowing that, she wasn't sure if she should tell him herself or wait for someone else to do it.

The kiss itself was trouble enough; William, in his current condtion, was something else entirely. Trying to talk to William earlier that day had gone horribly wrong, and once again Yumi felt guilty on his behalf. Not only had she accepted him into the group then not saved him from the Scyphozoa; as a direct result, he was now suffering from some sort of post-traumatic stress disorder that made it too difficult to think about what had happened.

William was back, but it would be an entirely different battle to return him to his former self. Worse still, it wasn't a battle Yumi knew how to fight.

Yumi sighed and ran her fingers through her hair. She really hadn't helped matters when she'd talked to him earlier. Luc was right; her communication skills needed work.

---------------

Ulrich had noticed the shift in dynamic over the last week. Luc and Mina would arrive at school together around the same time he, Odd, Jeremie and Aelita were sitting down to breakfast; Luc would escort Mina to the breakfast table and make idle chatter for a few minutes, and then he would vanish. Mina would linger with them for a while, sneaking bits of breakfast from everyone's trays. If she caught sight of William, she would dismiss herself to talk with him; if he was late, she would stay and chat with the rest of them.

That Tuesday morning, Ulrich finally discovered where Luc was disappearing to. Emotions burned in his chest when he saw him standing in the courtyard; the bell had just rung, and Yumi was turned towards the direction of her classroom... but she was lingering, exchanging words with Luc.

Ulrich knew Yumi. If she really didn't want to talk to someone, she'd leave. But there she was, and even though her expression said 'snappy remark', everything else about her said 'conversational overtone'. Luc was holding up his arms in mock defeat, and -- to his dismay -- Ulrich saw a faint smirk on Yumi's face.

He could handle whatever was going on with William. Yumi and William, to the best of his knowledge, had barely talked since his return. Nothing had happened yet, not with William acting so strange. Luc, on the other hand, was something else entirely. Ulrich hadn't accounted for him at all.

What had he said? "She can be mad at me all she wants; I'll charm her into being nice eventually..."

Ulrich tried to remind himself that he and Yumi were just friends, but the reminder was failing. His head knew what the boundary was, but his heart had never made the switch. Now, Luc was winning; with William still recovering and Yumi avoiding everyone else, he'd found his advantage and taken the initiative.

_So what are you gonna do about it?_

The thought stopped the anger that was building, and it cooled under the realization that there was nothing to be done. Yumi was avoiding him. If she didn't want to talk, then forcing the issue would only make it worse.

In the classroom, within minutes of the class starting, he felt something land on his hand and bounce off. A folded up piece of paper with his name printed on it in Mina's handwriting. It wasn't even fifteen minutes into class, and she was already passing notes

_You look like you're ready to kill something. Yourself or someone else, I'm not sure. You OK?_

Ulrich stared at the note for a couple minutes, starting to write a response and then changing his mind twice. He didn't want to lie. He didn't want to tell the truth, either.

Finally, he wrote, _Not really okay. Not really bad, either. Just frustrated._

She wrote back _Why?_, following it with _If it's a long explanation, I'll take class notes you can copy later._

Ulrich thought for a moment. _Thanks for offering. Can we talk lunch instead?_

She gave him a quick thumbs-up instead of writing back, and then began paying full attention to the teacher.

By the end of class, Ulrich realized he'd need to borrow Mina's notes anyway. Instead of writing out what was wrong, he spent the whole hour only thinking about it.

---------------

When Mina burst out laughing as he explained his problem, Ulrich did not feel comforted.

"You're not helping," he told her.

"I'm sorry," Mina said, still giggling, "But I promise, that's not at all what's happening."

Ulrich couldn't hide the aggravation in his tone. "Then what's going on? It looks like he's flirting. Successfully. With _Yumi._"

Mina smiled reassuringly and sighed. "You're really, really paranoid, you know that?"

"Rrgh... Okay, so I'm paranoid. If it's not flirting, what is it?"

"He's just trying to convince Yumi not to hate him. Perhaps you haven't noticed, but Yumi holds grudges really well. She started liking me when she realized I'm only involved because Luc dragged me along." Mina's smile turned rueful. "I told him we shouldn't have gone that night, but do I ever follow my own advice...?"

"So he doesn't have a crush on Yumi?" Ulrich verified.

Mina shook her head. "Not at all. After what happened with William, it'd be stupid to try and flirt with her now."

Only when the words had left her mouth did Mina realize what she'd said. She froze, and glanced at Ulrich to see if he'd missed her slip-up.

He hadn't. He was staring at her intently.

"What happened with William?"

Mina's thoughts flailed for any quick lie to cover her mistake, then realized she couldn't lie to him -- not when he was staring at her like that. She sighed. "Don't freak out, okay?"

"You're not inspiring confidence, Mina."

She winced. "Look, I don't know why she hasn't told you about it, but if it hasn't come up it's probably because she's confused --"

"Mina!"

Ulrich realized how sharp his tone was, and started over. "Mina. Yumi isn't talking to anyone. The only person she's given the time of day for a week, now, is Luc. I don't want to lose one of my best friends. Please, just tell me what happened."

Faced with the desperation in his eyes, Mina set her resolve.

"Okay. But you're not going to like it."

---------------

When Ulrich requested to meet Yumi in the park after class that day, she immediately had a sense of what was about to happen. It figured; any time she took too long to make a decision, someone would invariably make it for her.

He didn't bother with a greeting, instead launching directly into a tirade.

"Why didn't you say something?" he demanded. "It's been weeks since William came back; was I the only one who didn't know?"

"Obviously Odd didn't, or we would've had this conversation already."

The attempted humor fell flat in the face of Ulrich's temper, and probably just made him angrier.

"So everyone else knew you kissed him, and you just didn't bother saying anything because it didn't seem important enough?"

Yumi glared. "I didn't say anything because I knew you'd react like this. You always get so jealous; it's not like you have the right!"

"I do have a right!"

The hurt in his voice stopped Yumi from retorting.

"It was your idea to say we're just friends -- no questions, no options, nothing! How can you tell me I don't have a right when you never even asked how I felt?"

"You said it was fine --!"

"I was in shock!"

"That doesn't make it okay to wait this long to say something!"

The conversation had escalated into a shouting match, and every bird in the park had fallen silent. They both noticed, and stopped yelling long enough to breathe.

"If you had a problem with it," Yumi said, careful to keep her voice low, "You should have said something."

"You'd already made up your mind. Don't try to tell me you hadn't, because if that were true then you wouldn't have just declared us 'friends only' like that."

"You could've tried to change my mind."

"You could've given me the chance."

He had her at that; back then, she'd left no opportunity to debate the matter. Yumi tried to match his gaze, but the intensity he met her with was too much and she looked away.

"I did what I had to," she said, finally. "I couldn't deal with the drama on top of the constant sneaking around and lying to everyone." Yumi forced herself to look up again. "And when I kissed William, it was the only thing I could think of that would make him come back. His emotions overrode XANA's power; Jeremie used the debugging program; everyone made it home. It worked, okay? I wasn't trying to hurt anyone. I was just trying to make things right again."

And it had gone wrong anyway. William was back, but he was a shadow of who he used to be. Worse, saving William was destroying her friendship with Ulrich. Thinking about it hurt.

If Ulrich had any opinions on the matter, he wasn't speaking them. Even knowing how upset he was, Yumi wished he would say something -- some affirmation that he'd heard her, or that this would eventually blow over.

Ulrich looked away. Everything he wanted to say was too loaded. Questions like, "Is there a reason you're avoiding me?", or "So are you dating him now?", or "Are you in love with him?" He was afraid to ask them. At the rate things were going, the answers to those questions would take Yumi from him forever. Things were bad, but as long as they were quiet, she wasn't gone yet.

They stood there, the silence too heavy with their thoughts, both too scared of what would happen if the conversation continued; every new word seemed to push them further apart. In spite of everything that had happened, losing each other was the last thing either of them wanted. Unfortunately, neither knew what they had to do next.

The atmosphere was more than Yumi could take. "I need to go home," she said, her voice low.

Ulrich's eyes snapped up to meet hers, and he took a breath to protest -- to beg, if he needed to, that she not leave. Then their eyes met, and he knew she wasn't abandoning him. For just a moment, he saw that she was scared, too.

He nodded. "I'll talk to you later."

"Yeah. See ya."

They both turned, Ulrich towards the dormitory and Yumi towards home.

Mina was lingering in the courtyard with Luc and Odd. When she saw Ulrich returning, she pardoned herself from the conversation and hurried over.

"Is everything okay? Was she really mad?"

Ulrich shook his head. "I didn't tell her who told."

"What happened?" she pressed.

"I don't want to talk about it," he mumbled, and kept walking. Mina let him go, watching worriedly after him.

When she returned to where Odd and Luc were standing, Odd asked, "What's up with Ulrich?"

Mina sighed. "He didn't want to talk about it."

"Ah," said Odd, knowingly. "Yumi?"

"Uh huh... You remember that Yumi was the one to get William back?"

Odd nodded.

"Yumi kissed him. That's how she snapped him out of it long enough for me to freeze them and for Jeremie to start the debugger."

Odd's eyes widened. "She _kissed_ him?! Oh man, no wonder Ulrich's so ticked..."

Mina explained her slip to Ulrich earlier that day, and that she'd seen Yumi and Ulrich leave the campus that afternoon and deduced for herself what that meant.

Luc patted her head. "Wow. You really stuck your foot in it, this time."

She didn't even try to argue. "I know... Yumi's going to kill me."

"Only if someone tells," he said. His tone was meant to be reassuring, but both of them froze, looked at each other... then turned towards Odd.

Odd went from puzzled to decidedly nervous in a matter of seconds, and started to back away.

"When you look at me like that, I suddenly understand how small prey animals feel..."

"What do you think?" Luc asked Mina. "Bargain, or threats?"

"I think he can be reasoned with. What's the cost of silence?"

Odd considered. "Anything?"

Mina nodded. "Within reason, of course. If we can do it, we'll make it happen."

Neither of them expected Odd's response. "A date with Mina."

"Absolutely not."

Mina thwapped Luc's shoulder. "Lighten up."

"No way! That's asking too much."

"How is that asking too much?"

"Because I disapprove."

Mina rolled her eyes. "Whatever, _Dad_." She faced Odd again. "What sort of date?"

"Dinner and a movie?" Odd suggested. "Oh, and your brother isn't allowed to kill me."

"Deal," Mina said. Luc made a noise of protest.

"Great!" said Odd, and they shook hands to seal it. "Friday afternoon okay?"

They debated the finer details of the affair, and Mina dismissed herself for home. Luc looked from Mina to Odd, unsure who he wanted to berate first; ultimately, he followed Mina.

"You're insane, using dates as bargaining chips."

"I am not. Besides that, consider what else he could've asked for. We could've ended up doing his homework for three months, or giving up a videogame, or our lunches..."

"Okay, okay, I get the point..." Luc sighed, eyes still troubled. "I don't like the thought of dating someone to keep yourself out of trouble."

"It's one date."

"And what if he talks anyway?"

"If he does, he'll wait until after Friday," Mina said confidently. "Which means Yumi and Ulrich might make up before he slips, and by then Yumi won't have anything to be mad about anymore anyway."

"What if they don't make up?"

Mina considered this. "Well... by breaking the deal, you're allowed to kill him."

After weighing the pros and cons of both situations, Luc grudgingly conceded. "Fine. But be careful."

"Whatever." Mina shrugged. "It's Odd; he flirts with everyone. Me this week, Emily next."

Luc was not comforted.


	15. A Change of Tactics

If there was anything the Lyoko Warriors could resent XANA for, it was timing.

Half an hour into the first class on Wednesday morning, Jeremie's laptop began to beep the alert. He opened it to verify, aware of the others' eyes on him.

Even as his extraordinary intelligence tried to make up a probable excuse to leave, chaos struck. The ear-splitting sound of a desk being pushed across the floor stopped the teacher in mid-sentence, and everyone turned towards the back of the room. Before the teacher could ask what it was the student -- a girl, though Jeremie had never talked to her and couldn't remember her name -- was interrupting for, the desk itself began to levitate upward. It stopped a few feet from the ceiling, then launched towards the blackboard at the front of the room.

Students screamed, and the teacher ducked behind her desk only just in time to avoid being hit.

In the panic to escape the classroom and the kamikaze student, Jeremie, Aelita, Odd, Ulrich, Luc, and Mina ran for the boiler room passage. Aelita called Yumi.

"XANA attack?" Yumi asked.

"How'd you guess?"

"A call from you right after a crunch and a lot of screaming is usually a dead giveaway."

Aelita giggled. "We're on our way to the boiler room now."

"I'll meet you there."

The teacher was evacuating the class into the hall, barking orders to walk calmly out to the courtyard. As soon as they were on the ground floor, Yumi ducked away from the rest of the group, losing them in the crowd of other students.

A hand touched her wrist. She jerked away and whirled around.

William flinched back. "Whoa, hey, it's just me!"

Yumi realized she'd raised a hand into a fist unconsciously, and lowered it, embarrassed. "Sorry. What's up?"

It took him a moment to unstick the words from his mouth. "I'm going with you to the factory."

Any argument she might've given was stalled when Yumi's phone began to ring; the others were getting impatient. Instead, she said nothing and kept moving. William followed shortly behind.

When they arrived at the boiler room, Odd, Luc, and Mina were waiting for them.

"Jeremie and Ulrich got impatient, and Aelita went after them," Odd explained. He saw William and blinked in surprise. "You're joining us?"

William nodded, but he didn't look confident.

"Let's just go," Yumi said. "We've got a crazed computer program to stop."

When they got to the factory, Odd hammered on the elevator button to bring it back up to surface level. The elevator wasn't moving.

"Think it's broken?" suggested Mina.

Odd and Yumi's expression were matching shades of dread. They ran for the ladder, descending as fast as they could without falling.

In the computer room, Jeremie was staving off an attack from the same student who had thrown the desk. Luc and Yumi continued down to the scanner room. William and Odd tackled the girl, knocking Jeremie out of the way. Mina pulled Jeremie upright and helped him to his chair.

"Yumi and Luc need to be virtualized," she told him. "What's going on?"

"I don't know! I thought she was you guys when she came down on the elevator. Ulrich and Aelita were already virtualized, and --"

They both winced as someone hit the wall and groaned painfully.

"-- it's only dumb luck I held her off as long as I did," he finished.

"It's dumb luck keeping us from getting our butts kicked now." Mina looked at the screen. "How are the others?"

Jeremie focused his attention on the screen and began checking stats. "Better, now that Yumi and Luc are there. Aelita?"

"We're almost to the tower, Jeremie," she answered.

A crash yanked their attention away from the computer. William and Odd -- both flopped like ragdolls against the wall -- were officially out of commission. The girl had turned back towards them. Her eyes flickered strangely, and her hands sparked with electricity.

Mina charged at her, determined to keep her away from Jeremie. She squeaked when, instead of making impact, she went right through the XANAfied girl and landed hard on the floor. Fighting the desire to curl up in a ball and stay there until she stopped hurting, Mina forced herself to sit up.

The girl had Jeremie by the throat, several inches off the floor. He grabbed her wrist, trying to push himself away with little success. With her free hand, she typed something on the keyboard, then hurled Jeremie across the room. He landed next to Mina, gasping for air.

"Stop her," he croaked.

Mina remembered what had happened the last time she tried. Hopelessness flooded her, but at the moment, she was the only non-virtualized member of the group who could still resist.

The girl was descending the ladder to the scanner room. The elevator itself looked like something had exploded inside it; using it was out of the question. Mina descended the ladder after her, then -- on a sudden, daringly stupid inspiration -- let go of the ladder and jumped the rest of the way down.

Her XANAfied classmate turned invincible just in time for Mina to pass through her. She landed on her feet, her knees buckled, and she fell gracelessly onto her backside, but she'd bought herself some time.

One of the scanners sat open and waiting. Mina got up and planted herself firmly in front of it, arms spread wide to block the way, and waited. The possessed girl approached her, scowling and already crackling with power. Her arms reached out threateningly, and Mina screwed her eyes tightly shut, bracing herself for the pain.

The other girl froze, then she collapsed, slumping forward onto Mina.

Aelita had deactivated the tower.

Mina's knees gave out, but before she dropped to the floor, Jeremie triggered a return to the past.

They only went as far back as that morning, a half-hour before class began. They gathered at the vending machine -- the whole team, all together, for the first time in weeks.

"So tell us, Einstein," Odd began. "What's XANA up to, this time?"

"If I had to guess, I'd say he's trying to get us busted."

That drew puzzled expressions all around.

"Busted?" asked Yumi. "What do you mean?"

"I mean," Jeremie said, adjusting his glasses on his nose, "That girl had typed in the code to virtualize. XANA wasn't trying to mess up the computer; he was trying to virtualize someone other than us. I checked the records: he'd only activated the one tower, and no Scyphozoa; replacing William wasn't on the agenda."

Aelita understood his meaning first. "So he was trying to put an innocent person on Lyoko -- someone who might tell the authorities about it, resulting in locking down the factory. We wouldn't be able to stop him anymore!"

Jeremie nodded. "Without us around, XANA would have complete power. As of now, we have to be more vigilant than ever about stopping him. A slip-up now could cost us everything."

--------------

Ulrich spent the whole morning staring off into space. Odd had filled him in on what happened during that morning's fight: William had resumed an active position on the team, even if he didn't make it to Lyoko itself. He tried to feel happier about this. If William was acting even a little more normal, then their chances against XANA had just gone up.

Mostly, though, he felt worried. Worried that this would once again affect the dynamic between him and Yumi. After yesterday, things were more awkward than usual. Before, they were barely speaking; now, they both knew why.

Fighting on Lyoko was different, too. That morning had been the first real example. Their natural instinct for fighting side by side was still there, but the encouragement and the sarcastic banter was gone. They had spent the whole fight in almost total silence, broken only to alert each other of an attack from behind.

What it all boiled down to, by the time the lunch bell rang, was that Ulrich missed her. Until then, he'd never realized it was possible to miss someone who hadn't really left.

When he arrived at the cafeteria and collected his lunch, Ulrich went to the table he and the others usually inhabited only to find it was almost full. there was one space left for him on the end, next to Odd.

Odd greeted him with cheer and a mouthful of spaghetti.

"'Ey, Urik!" Odd swallowed, and smiled, mouth painted with spaghetti sauce. "Given up on daydreaming long enough for lunch?"

"Coming from someone who falls asleep in class regularly, that's a laugh," Ulrich retorted. "You're wearing half of your lunch on your face."

"I'm saving it for later," joked Odd, but he grabbed a napkin and mopped himself up quickly. He glanced at Mina to see if she'd noticed -- a glance that Ulrich didn't miss. He smirked and didn't say anything.

In spite of how the last couple weeks had been, he still missed talking to Yumi during lunch. She was sitting on the opposite end of the table, chatting -- however nervously -- with William across from her. Ulrich couldn't make out what they were saying, but he could see both were making an effort at normal conversation with each other. Luc, seated next to Yumi, was helping the conversation along cheerfully with occasional input from Mina, who was sitting by William but more interested in her food than talk.

Eight weeks ago, it would've been Ulrich, Odd, Jeremie, Aelita, and Yumi, and aside from the occasional flared temper, there would be no fighting or awkward silences. There still would've been the problem of a missing William, and XANA working under even more mysterious conditions, but that didn't seem so bad, now. Somehow, the more they had won, the more it felt to Ulrich like he'd lost something important.

--------------

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

Sorry that updates have been so patchy for the last couple months; there have been distractions, and once enough of those build up it's hard to get back into the swing of things. I haven't abandoned the story, nor do I intend to.

I plan to begin updating regularly again. I haven't determined a schedule for it yet, but once every 7 – 10 days sounds good, don't you think?

Thank you so, so much to Zola, Bandobaby, Razer, Kiwi, Mewmic, Tooth Decay Fighter, and LyokoWarrior12 for reading and reviewing! The encouragement keeps me writing, and reminds me there are people who are interested in the story and want to know what happens next. It keeps me from giving up – and I really appreciate your efforts. Thank you for cheering me on!

Thank you also to the silent readers – the people who have put "Ordinary World" as one of their favorites, or set an Author Alert so you know when I've updated. It's different from getting a review, but it's still really uplifting when someone (commenter or not) decides my story is worth tracking.

If anyone's wondering, I _do_ have a lot of the storyline plotted out in advance – pages of notes and thoughts and ideas on what happens next. I'll eventually be filling in some plot holes (and possibly leaving one or two gaping wide open XD). There are currently seven major plot archs total (with more pending), and this chapter is the beginning of arch #5, "Solidarity". (If you're wondering, plots 1 – 4 are "Infiltration," "History," "Establishment," and "Shake-up." If you read carefully, you can probably figure out which chapters belong to which arch.)

One final note: The next couple chapters are going to be a break from the angst of the last few. It's time for some cuteness, I say!

Tiki Rocket


	16. The Jitters

Odd's mood had gotten cheerier and cheerier as Wednesday ended and Thursday passed, until he'd reached the point of unbearability by Friday afternoon.

When Ulrich complained ("Do you have to hum like that all the time?"), Odd's good humor only intensified. "Don't be mad because I'm cutting through your clouds of gloom, good buddy," he said. "Just because you like your little angst-storm doesn't mean everyone wants to share."

"What's turned you into the King of Sunshine and Puppies?" Ulrich frumped.

Odd's beaming smile made Ulrich want to go back to bed.

"I," Odd announced, "Have a date this evening with Mina."

Ulrich allowed some of Odd's cheer to get to him, and he smirked. "Does she know about this?"

"Of course," Odd said, undeterred by the sarcasm. "We arranged it on Tuesday. I'm thinkin'..." He held his hands out as if he were framing an imaginary scene. "A romantic dinner for two at Lapine Agile, whatever movie seems the most heart-squeezing, and finish it up with a walk along the river. D'you think I should bring red roses or white ones? Or maybe pink..."

Ulrich weighed the pros and cons of dragging his friend's thoughts back down to earth, ultimately deciding there was no point in wasting his breath. Odd's mind was a few hours in the future, mapping out his evening with Mina.

Meanwhile, Luc and Mina had just made it through the front door. Luc watched as Mina proceeded into the usual routine: raid fridge and pantry, stock up on snacks, and head towards their study where they would ordinarily proceed to stare at their homework for half an hour, then find something more interesting to do.

"Don't you have a date tonight?" Luc asked, following her into their study. She was already pulling open a bag of blue corn chips, and offered the open bag in his direction.

"Yeah."

Luc accepted the offering, pulling a small handful of chips out. "Aren't you gonna get ready?"

Mina shrugged. "Later. The date's not until six, and I won't need loads of time to get ready."

Considering how Odd had been glowing for the last two days -- which Mina, apparently, hadn't noticed -- Luc suspected their local doofus was already sorting through his wardrobe for something appropriate and picking the most alluring cologne.

Luc didn't approve of the date, but he couldn't help but think Mina wasn't giving Odd enough credit.

"Do you know what you're going to wear?"

Mina sat down in her desk chair and thought for a moment. "I hadn't really thought about it. I was thinking I'd just wear what I've got on."

"Mina, come on... It's a date, right? Shouldn't you put in a _little_ effort?"

Mina gave him a teasing smirk. "Weren't you openly against this just the other day?"

"Well, yeah. But it's a date. You're supposed to put in some effort to look nice."

"Luc, it's just Odd."

Luc frowned. "'Just Odd'?"

"Yeah." Mina opened her school bag and began pulling out notebooks and textbooks, laying them out on her desk. "He flirts with girls all the time. It's not going to be the most pivotal date experience of my life or something."

"Mina."

"Yes?"

"Have you been on a date before?"

"You know I haven't."

Luc grabbed Mina's wrist and pulled her upright our of her chair.

"Hey! What --?!"

"This," Luc said firmly, "Is your first date _ever_. I don't like that it's Odd, but I'm not about to let you go on your first date with _that_ attitude and _that_ appearance."

With that, and despite all of Mina's protests, Luc dragged her out of the office and towards the bathroom.

"You're going to take a shower. I'll go through your closet and choose something for you to wear. Tonight, when you get home, you'd better've had an excellent first date, or so help me, I will _kill_ Della Robbia."

---------------

At five fifty-five, the doorbell rang.

"He's early!" Luc despaired. "He's not supposed to be early!"

"Would you settle down?" Mina snipped. "Get the door, I can finish up."

Luc left the bathroom to answer the door, and Mina stared herself down in the mirror. She heaved a sigh. Why, why, _why_ did she let Luc talk her into this? When the doorbell rang, her insides had jolted nervously; she was letting Luc's attitude get to her. She'd felt pretty confident before, dressed as usual with her hair done as it always was with the white headband keeping it out of her eyes. Now, sections of hair framed her face while the rest of it was pulled back and up into buns on either side of the back of her head. Luc had batted her fingers from the loose parts twice already; she knew they would be distracting her all night.

He'd chosen a knee-length white dress printed with boughs of peach branches, green leaves and ripe fruit. Instead of her usual knee-high boots, Luc had dug out a pair of white shoes with a little bit of heel to them (Mom wasn't about to buy her high heels, but she had thought these were cute). The tops of her feet were left open, and there was a strap at the heel that buckled around her ankle.

It was a nice ensemble, but without her hoodie or her boots, She felt a little exposed.

Mina applied a little lip gloss she had 'borrowed' from their parents' bathroom, and donned the dark green cardigan Luc had said would look the nicest with her dress since it was too cold go out at night without sleeves. She heaved a sigh, gave herself an encouraging smile in the mirror, and stepped out into the hallway.

As she descended the stairs, self-consciousness took over. Odd, clearly delighted with the effort made in her appearance, was staring and smiling a bit stupidly. Luc looked pleased with the response, in spite of himself.

"Touch my sister, and I reserve the right to beat the living --"

"Luc!"

Luc didn't finish his sentence, contenting himself to give Odd meaningful, dangerous glances to make his point clear.

"You look great," Odd said enthusiastically.

"Thanks. You do, too."

Odd had kept his usual purple theme to a minimum, opting for a dominantly black outfit with sharp black slacks, a purple Oxford shirt, and a black blazer. He silently cheered himself for his choice in roses as he presented three of them to Mina: Joseph's Coat roses, all the right shades of oranges and pinks to match the peaches on her dress.

Mina smiled as she accepted the blooms, sniffing them appreciatively before dismissing herself into the kitchen to find a vase.

As soon as she was out of earshot, Luc turned his evil eye back on Odd. "This is Mina's first date _ever_. You are going to make it the happiest first date memory she's ever imagined."

"Wouldn't dream of ruining it," Odd reassured, hoping Luc would be pacified by that and a smile.

Luc looked like he wanted to add something else, but he held his tongue and the two stood in silence until Mina returned. Odd held the door open for her as they departed.

"I'll be back by ten," she promised.

Luc nodded. "I'll tell Mom. Stay safe, okay?"

Mina doubled back to give him a quick hug. "Of course. Don't get too bored without me."

He chuckled as if the idea were ridiculous, but when the door closed behind her, Luc's smile faded dismally. This was the first Friday night they'd spent apart since... since... He couldn't _remember_ the last Friday night they'd spent apart. Or the last time they'd been this far apart for more than an hour or so to do anything other than sleep. Even when having time alone, they were always in the same area, never more than a shout away.

With their parents not yet home from work, and the house all to himself, the solitude was oppressive.

--------------

At the front gate outside, Mina was hesitating as she closed it slowly behind her. She rarely left home without Luc, much less for anything more than a quick walk around the neighborhood.

_Relax,_ she told herself. _You're supposed to be having fun tonight._

"You okay, Dollface?" asked Odd. "You look a little out of it."

Mina smiled. "I'm fine. I just don't go places without Luc that often. It's a strange feeling."

"I'll do everything I can to distract you from it," Odd assured, extending his elbow like a gentleman for her to hook her hand onto. "Shall we?"

With a giggle she couldn't quite suppress, Mina accepted his invitation and the two of them began to walk towards downtown.

--------------


	17. On Dates & Comfort Zones

Luc was improvising dinner.

Mina was the rule-follower, usually, and the first one to grab a cookbook, while Luc would create improvisations that (usually) turned out delicious. He'd done it loads, and so the idea of cooking pasta with a little herb chicken seemed simple enough.

First, you needed pasta. Simple enough. Luc boiled the water, chucked the dry pasta in, and strained it when it was done.

Second, you needed chicken. He found chicken breast on a shelf in the fridge, took it out, and cut it into mostly even-looking chunks. Also simple.

Third, obviously, was the herbs.

"Herbs, herbs..." The spice rack was not his forte. This was the part where Mina usually stepped in, grabbed a bunch of mysterious bottles and shakers and jars, and then did something equally mysterious to flavor the chicken with it. During this part, Luc was usually chopping vegetables or checking the pasta.

Ginger, dill, cinnamon, thyme... 'Poultry Seasoning' was a vague but promising title. He grabbed all four, plus a jar of something unlabeled for the sake of adventure, and put a light layer of each on the raw meat before pushing it into the frying pan.

Chicken cooks fast, and with the pasta already finished and an apple set aside to balance out the meal, his dinner was finished in no time.

Luc set his plate down on the dining table, his apple to one side and a glass of water to the other, and speared a piece of chicken for the first bite.

For five seconds, all was well. The herb combination was strange, but not gross. Then, quite suddenly, his mouth began to burn as though he'd stuck an open flame on his tongue. His eyes watered, and, certain that smoke would begin to spew from his ears, he grabbed his glass of water and took a deep swig.

Whatever that mysterious ingredient was, it was hotter than hell.

He looked dismally on at his plate of otherwise delicious-looking food. Luc was hungry, and it would be a waste to not finish it, but he was not a fan of spicy foods.

Steeling his resolve, Luc twirled some pasta onto his fork and stabbed another piece of chicken. With any luck, he hoped, the taste of the pasta would take the edge off the spiciness.

Mina, he knew, would've known better than to add whatever-that-was.

--------------

"What'll it be, Dollface?" asked Odd. They were standing at a street corner. One way was the Lapine Agile, famed for its four-star cuisine and unusually prompt service; the other way was Chez Fleur, an equally fine restaurant who made flowers a theme in every dish.

"Actually..."

"Yes?"

"Isn't there a new place just over that way?"

Odd couldn't hide his surprise. "The Three Shakes?"

Mina nodded. "It's themed like an American diner in the 1950s, only a little more upscale. Burgers, fries, shakes... Every time I go past, I think of how fun it would be to go there."

Odd weighed his options. Lapine Agile or Chez Fleur would be a lot ritzier -- definitely a good way to make a memory -- but Mina was requesting the Three Shakes. The command from on high was that Mina's First Date Ever was something she'd remember happily, so...

"The Three Shakes it is, then!" Odd declared.

In all honesty, a burger sounded way better to him than flower salad or truffle pilaf.

The food at the Three Shakes was excellent. The burgers were juicy and layered with just enough pickle and tomato; the fries were made with real, lightly seasoned potatoes; and the shakes and malts were nothing short of heavenly.

Mina sipped at a strawberry malt, her own burger and fries already devoured. "Thanks a lot for taking me here," she said. "I know you'd been interested in Lapine Agile."

Odd was still alternating between sips of his chocolate milkshake and the last of his fries. "You're very welcome – and don't worry; coming here is a sacrifice I'd happily make again. Did you eat at places like this in America?"

"Sometimes." She took another sip of her malt. "Want a taste of this? It's delicious."

"Sure! Want a taste of mine, too?"

"Absolutely," she said cheerfully. She used the spoon from her glass to offer a taste to Odd. He accepted the offering and closed his eyes to relish the flavor.

"That tastes like real strawberries," he observed. "Not just flavored syrup."

Mina nodded happily. "Now me!"

Odd held his spoon out to her, and she took the bite.

"Mm... Chocolate and strawberry really is a great combination," she observed.

"Of course it is," said Odd authoritatively. "It's a well-known aphrodisiac. The Goddess of Love herself blessed the combination."

Mina giggled.

"Aren't they cute?"

"Puppy love, wouldn't you say?"

"Absolutely. To be that young again, those first forays into romance..."

The restaurant owners were standing behind the counter, watching Mina and Odd's dinner date unfold and -- not knowing Mina spoke English as her native language – they were commenting to each other on the proceedings.

"Huh," Odd said. "Sounds like the owners are Americans. Pretty cool, that they brought this diner experience to France. Hey, are you okay?"

Mina, having understood every word, was blushing bright pink. "Oh, yeah, I'm fine. Actually, I'm just going to go wash my hands; I've got burger grease on them, and the napkin's not enough to get it off."

She got up and hurried to the restroom. She _did_ need to wash her hands, but more to the point, she needed to regroup.

_What is wrong with me?_ she thought. _Why do I feel so weird? And why, _why_, do I keep _giggling_ like that?_

Mina shut off the water, resting her hands on the edge of the sink as she stared down her reflection. Her hair was still fine, even though she'd caught herself twirling the parts by her face around her fingers no less than six times that evening already. The dress, the cardigan, the shoes, her hair style... None of it felt normal.

On top of that, there was no Luc around. His presence was part of her 'normal', too. Mina was unquestionably out of her element.

She took a few slow, deep breaths. "Okay," she told herself. "This isn't bad. This is just... different. Really different. I'm not used to it, but that doesn't mean I can't adjust. It's just Odd after all, right?"

Then she thought of the giggling. It wasn't her usual giggle, either; it was higher, and more nervous, and completely unlike what she was used to hearing when she laughed. The only explanation she could think of was that it was somehow related to being alone with Odd -- something that hadn't really happened before.

So maybe he wasn't 'just' Odd, after all.

Mina took more deep breaths. _Just go back out and finish your milkshake_, she told herself. _I'm having fun, I know it. I'm just... not used to having fun without Luc. Or on dates._ She smiled at her reflection._ Relax and enjoy it!_

--------------

Luc finished his math homework -- and the math homework problems that would probably be assigned for the next week -- and set his notebook aside, sighing heavily. Without Mina around, he was _bored_. When she was home, even when the two of them were in separate rooms, the potential to go do something interesting was always there. It was just a matter of timing.

A sudden burst of determination forced Luc into a standing position. He wasn't going to let Mina's absence stop him from having fun! He'd find something to do alone. Some great adventure he could tell her about later, and...

He sat down.

Somehow, not having Mina to drag along with him sucked the fun out of everything. There was no one to tell him how bad an idea it was, and with no one saying as much, then where was the fun in doing it? With no reality check, how would he know if he was going too far?

Luc went downstairs to the living room and turned on the TV. Maybe there would be something interesting on.

--------------

In spite of three high-rating movies with heavy romantic themes being in the theatre all at once, Mina had -- to Odd's silent delight -- picked the _Galaxy Zombie War_ movie he'd been waiting to see since he heard about its production six months earlier. As they left the theatre, the two of them narrated their favorite parts of the film to each other, complete with artillery sound effects and groans of zombies being mowed down.

"Oh man, and the part where the zombie lurched out of the storage room and sank its teeth into that one guy," Odd enthused. "I jumped a foot!"

"Me too, me too! And then Major Laura Court took it out with the rocket launcher..."

They were talking, and laughing, and -- to Mina's relief -- it felt perfectly normal. Though she'd been so nervous earlier, the movie had unwound all the tension and everything was back to its usual comfort level. So her clothes and hair were different, and there was no Luc around -- she was still Mina, after all.

Odd led the way back towards the school and Mina's home, choosing the path along the river. One part of his evening's plan, at least, would happen the way he'd intended.

As their excitement from the movie cooled, the two of them began to take more interest in their surroundings.

"You can really see the stars from here," Mina observed. "There's a little less light polution by the water."

They both slowed down, turning their heads upward to watch the sky as they walked slowly on.

"Thanks, Odd," said Mina suddenly. "For inviting me out tonight, I mean."

He grinned and winked. "Even if it was blackmail?"

Mina laughed. "Even if it was blackmail. Thank you for blackmailing me."

They were mostly quiet after that, a comfortable silence that followed an evening well-spent.

When they reached the front gate of the house, there was an awkward pause. Neither was sure what to do next.

"Well," Mina started. "Thanks again."

"Any time, Dollface," replied Odd cheerfully.

Mina fidgeted with her fingers, then reached out to open the gate.

"Can I make one last request before you go in?"

She looked up. "Yes?"

"May I kiss you goodnight?"

Mina blushed, then smiled. "Okay."

Odd leaned in, and Mina closed the remaining distance to give him a light kiss at the corner of his mouth. It was a chaste kiss, but they both glowed pink from it.

"Goodnight, Odd."

"Goodnight, Mina."

Mina opened the front gate and closed it behind herself, then jogged up to the front door and went inside.

Luc was sitting -- if you could call it that -- on the couch with this heels resting on the top of the couch's back and his head hanging off the edge of the seat cushion, watching TV upside down.

"I'm home," Mina announced, then looked into the family room and frowned. "Were you bored or something?"

"TV's a lot more interesting this way," he said informatively. "I have gained a new appreciation for telecommunications."

"Wow. _Really_ bored."

"I missed you."

Mina tucked her dress between her knees and assumed the same upside-down position next to him. "I missed you, too. Weirdo."

--------------

Odd was glowing all the way back to the dorm. It had been a very satisfying first date, he thought, and there had been no horrifically embarrassing moments involving foot odor or spilled food or freudian slips. Better yet, he hadn't been haunted the whole time by worrying Jeremie would call, and that he would have to dismiss himself with a hastily-and-poorly-contrived excuse to go save the world. If he had gotten a call, Mina wouldn't need excuses; she would've come with him.

Ulrich was still awake when he returned to their room.

"Welcome home, Casanova," he greeted. "How'd it go?"

"Marvelously. We went to the Three Shakes, and we saw _Galaxy Zombie War_, and _she_ chose the food and the movie and loved both. Then we went for a walk along the river and watched the stars, and we had a kiss at the front gate of her house."

"And still home before curfew," observed Ulrich.

"What? Really?"

He looked at the clock. Nine fifty-five; no wonder security seemed so thin.

"Wow, great timing. I had figured it would be at _least_ ten by the time we got back to her house."

"So how was the Three Shakes?" asked Ulrich. "I've wanted to try it."

"It was really good. The burgers were huge, and the fries? Killer. Awesome shakes, too; you can tell they use real ingredients instead of artificial syrups."

When Ulrich asked about the movie, Odd launched into a play-by-play of his and Mina's favorite scenes in no particular order.

"I know it was a date and all," Ulrich said, at the end of Odd's explanation, "But listening to you talk about it, I kind of wish I had gone, too. It sounds like the two of you had a lot of fun hanging out."

Odd agreed emphatically, but half an hour later -- laying in bed, still reflecting on the evening -- his thoughts kept circling back to Ulrich's words: "hanging out." _Hanging out..._

The more he thought about it, the deeper his understanding became. It _had_ been a really fun evening, but aside from the kiss and the quasi-romantic stargazing, he really could have spent the evening with Ulrich and Jeremie and had just as much fun. Being with Mina had made it that much better, but at the end of it all, their date hadn't been very date-like. It had been a lot like hanging out with a good friend.


	18. Evaluating Current Circumstances

When Odd woke up on Saturday morning, he completely neglected to be impressed with himself for waking during AM hours in favor of thinking about Mina again. He'd had dreams about her all night, and about their friendly relationship. He liked it, he decided; being friends with the person you liked made liking them even better. Asking a girl out because she was pretty was one thing, but actually having loads in common? 

He liked it, but things were still too friend-like. With friends, that was good, but he didn't want to be friends with Mina. That is, he _did_ want to be friends, but he wanted to be her boyfriend, too -- the person she smiled at when she was happiest, the hand she sought to hold, the lips she wanted to kiss...

Odd blushed at his own train of thought. It was definitely too early for that kind of mush.

The absence of Ulrich was the next thing Odd noticed. He got up and put on his clothes, then went in search of his absent companion. It didn't take long; Ulrich wasn't much more of an early riser than Odd was, and he was seated in the cafeteria, picking groggily at his food.

"Morning, sunshine," Odd quipped, sitting down with his own breakfast. "You look..."

"Like death warmed over?" Ulrich provided.

"I was going to say 'bleak', but if you'd rather I be honest..." When this didn't earn more than a half-hearted smile, Odd pressed, "So what's up? Nightmares?"

"Waking life's bad enough. Yumi's still not talking to me. I don't know what to do about it anymore. I can't talk to her because I might make it worse, but with neither of us speaking we're at a stalemate."

"I could talk to her for you."

When Ulrich gave Odd a dubious look, Odd defended, "Hey, you never know. I might say the magic words to get her to open up again."

"Not that I don't appreciate your sentiment, but I don't think your way with words is what this problem needs."

Odd shrugged. "I offered to help... Are you gonna eat that?"

With a glare and a possessive slide of his breakfast tray, Ulrich made it quite clear he wasn't in the mood to share.

--------------

Aelita woke up to discover she was still in Jeremie's room. She chastised herself silently. If someone had come through that morning and caught her, she could've gotten them both in a lot of trouble.

Jeremie must have put her in the bed when she fell asleep, because she couldn't remember laying down there herself. He himself had fallen asleep at his desk, arms folded as a pillow in front of him. Guiltily, she wondered if it was because he'd fallen asleep while working or if he'd slept there out of chivalry -- protecting his lady's honor.

Getting out of his bed, she touched Jeremie's shoulder. "Hey," she said softly. "You can take the bed, if you want to get some more sleep. Sorry to make you sleep at the desk again."

Jeremie didn't open his eyes, but he sighed sleepily and replied, "You didn't make me do anything." His hand nearest to hers shifted up to touch her fingers. "Gimme a couple minutes and we can go get breakfast."

Aelita brushed his fingers with hers, then she closed the shades and walked to the door. Jeremie was definitely not about to wake up. She smiled to herself at the familiar sight of him asleep at his desk, then opened the bedroom door and peaked out, checking for anyone who might ask what a girl was doing in one of the boys' dorm rooms before hurrying downstairs.

--------------

By the middle of the afternoon on Saturday, Yumi had finished only a third of the assignments she had been blatantly ignoring for the last week. It wasn't much, but it was an improvement.

"Yumi?"

"Yeah?"

"Come downstairs for some lunch. You skipped breakfast; you'll never get through your homework if you don't eat something."

She almost argued that she wasn't hungry, but stopped before she said anything. The feeling of irritation had grown the longer she worked; eating, she hoped, would help.

Just as she was finishing the last bites of her late lunch, the doorbell rang. Yumi's mother answered, and Yumi cringed in embarrassment when she heard "Yumi! It's a boy!"

She could already guess it wasn't Ulrich. If it was, he would've been identified. "A boy", then, probably meant William. It was still a relief, though, when she found out she was right. William was someone Yumi could deal with.

"Hey," she greeted. 

"Hey," he answered, clearly struggling and failing not to look around the house with immense curiosity. "I didn't really mean to stop in. I was thinking about it, but then some kid ran by and hit the doorbell while I was at the gate..."

"It's all right. I don't mind the company." She smiled. Even though she was behind on her school work, it was all right to make time to relax, wasn't it?

William looked both surprised and a little pleased. 

Yumi put her bowl away in the sink, said "I'll be right back," and ran upstairs to brush her teeth before running back down. "Let's take a walk. I've been inside all day; I should probably get out and do something."

William had been out skateboarding when he'd found himself at Yumi's doorstep. Now, on the sidewalk on Yumi's street, he idled along on his board while Yumi walked next to him. Neither of them had a destination in mind; they moved along, side by side, William tracking the bumps in the sidewalk and Yumi observing their surroundings peacefully.

"It's gotten colder," she observed.

"I can't believe it's late fall already. I feel like I've missed so much."

"When Aelita spent all that time in Lyoko, she didn't age at all. I bet you haven't aged, either. Months of your life, skipped over completely."

"I thought about that," William mused. "Does that mean that I can't celebrate my next birthday until a few months later?"

Yumi grinned. "I won't tell if you won't."

William laughed, missed seeing the rock in front of his skateboard wheel, and nearly tumbled off his board. Yumi caught his wrist when he flailed to stay upright, while his skateboard shot out backwards from beneath his feet.

"Graceful," teased Yumi. In spite of his obvious embarrassment, William smiled.

"Totally intentional," he said.

In the pause that followed, Yumi realized she was still holding his wrist -- something William observed at the same time, looking at her hand and then awkwardly away. She let go and blushed.

"I'll just go grab my skateboard," William mumbled. "It's running away. Be right back."

When he returned, they lapsed into silence again. Their thoughts were the same: the awkwardness in their friendship was bordering on unbearable, but neither one wanted to be alone with everything that had been on their minds lately. Walking together and not talking was weird, but it was a big step up from sitting alone in their rooms, struggling to find something else to think about.

The road Yumi lived on ended near a field full of tall, yellow-gray grass. small trees dotted the field, and larger ones marked its edges. A chilly, mid-fall breeze blew across it, making the grass sway and the trees rustle, tousling Yumi and William's hair.

Yumi leaped over the fence like a gymnast over a vault. William followed after her to a tree in the middle of the field, where she grabbed onto the nearest branch and swung herself up onto it. 

"Is it okay for us to be out here?" William asked.

"No one's ever yelled at me for it."

William sat down at the base of the tree, and Yumi leaned back against the trunk from her branch. Their brief conversation ended there, but that was okay; just having company was comforting enough.

--------------

"So did he ask you out again afterwards?" 

"No."

"Are you okay with that?"

"I think so."

"You think so."

Mina sighed and ran her fingers through her hair in frustration. "Yes, I think so. I'm not going to be sad if it never happens again. I won't think a lot of it if he does ask."

"Do you like him?"

Mina glowered at Luc. "What's with the third degree, anyway?"

"I'm trying to decide whether or not I should kill him for not asking you out again."

"You aren't allowed to kill him at all, for any reason."

"Why not?"

"Because there's no good reason for it. Weren't you mad he asked me out in the first place?"

"Well, yes. But a man should follow through on his commitments, and --"

"And he followed through," Mina interrupted. "He committed to one date -- which you frowned on, remember? -- and he can go right back to flirting now that it's over."

Luc scowled. "No he can't. You're awesome. He's not allowed to think anyone else is better."

Stifling the urge to snarl in frustration, Mina sighed. "All right, fine, you can be bitter with him over whatever you want. Just don't forget to be friends with him in the mean time; we're all _friends_, remember? And that means we need to try to get along." She picked up the book she'd been reading before Luc came in and opened it.

"You didn't answer whether or not you like him."

"Rrrrgh!"

Luc dodged the couch cushion she threw at him, picked it up, and returned it to the couch. "Yes or no?"

Mina grabbed the cushion, but instead of throwing it again she pressed it over her face, muffling the very annoyed "I _don't know_" she spat out.

"You _have_ to know."

She didn't move the pillow. "No I don't. It's Odd. He's funny. He's a great friend. The date was fun. That doesn't mean I know whether or not I want to go out with him again."

Luc sat down next to her, touching the hand that still held her book. Mina took a slow breath and sighed, tension leaving her muscles as she did.

"Sorry for nagging." Luc gave Mina's hand a light squeeze.

"S'aright. Sorry for not having answers."

--------------

Late that night, Jeremie -- who had been struggling to decrypt the data he'd picked up about XANA's plans -- got up to use the restroom. It would have been a wholly unnoteworthy endeavor if he hadn't bumped into one of his classmates on the way back to his room; the other boy was a notorious sleepwalker.

"Hey, Cecil," Jeremie said gently, approaching him. "Let's go back that way. Sleeping should be kept to your bedroom."

When Cecil threw him into the wall, Jeremie decided this was probably not another sleepwalking adventure. When his vision stopped spinning a moment later, he confirmed: Cecil's eyes held the telltale mark of a XANA posession.

There was no time to run back to his room and make phone calls. Instead, Jeremie ran for the nearest fire alarm and set it off. With the whole dorm awake, he could get hold of Ulrich, Odd, and Aelita all at once while everyone evacuated.

The plan might've gone better if they had any sort of pre-arranged meeting place for situations like this.

He managed to find Ulrich and Odd and sent them running for the factory first, but finding Aelita was harder. She looked half asleep and was sitting against one of the trees, almost impossible to see with so many other students standing around. When Jeremie told her what had happened, she snapped awake and -- without any additional conversation -- the two of them ran to the factory. 

As they ran through the park, Jeremie clenched his jaw; he was sure they wouldn't make it in time. There was no way they could beat XANA to the super computer with their late start, and without Aelita there to deactivate the tower already...

When they arrived, however, they found everything in still-peaceful condition. Odd was already virtualized on Lyoko; Ulrich was standing guard at the computer.

"You made it," he said, sounding relieved and a little surprised. "I was sure it would be XANA."

"Yeah," Jeremie agreed. "I was afraid of that, too... When's he ever late?"

Aelita and Ulrich descended to the scanners and Jeremie virtualized them, the whole time sitting on edge as he waited for XANAfied Cecil to descend down the elevator shaft. But then Aelita's voice came over the headset:

"Tower deactivated."

"What? Oh... Return to the past..."

Jeremie sent them back only two hours, finding himself back in his dormitory, then went down to Aelita's room. Odd and Ulrich arrived shortly after.

"Is it just me," he asked, "Or was that really easy?"

Aelita nodded. "I thought so, too..."

"Maybe taking over a sleepwalker wasn't as easy as XANA thought it'd be?" Odd suggested. "I mean, if the person you're inhabiting is basically asleep anyway..."

A knock on the bedroom door sent the boys into a panic, but then it opened to reveal William. The missing pieces began to fill themselves in.

"Hey," he said, giving a small wave. "Thanks for that short Return. The fight with Cecil was a real brawl, and Jim was just about to bust it up. Returning to this morning, though..."

"Didn't want to go through the day all over again?" Aelita remarked, smiling. "I don't blame you. Once is enough."

Privately, William thought it wouldn't have been so bad to hang out with Yumi once more; being able to repeat the afternoon would have been kind of nice. With Ulrich in the room, though, he wasn't sure that announcement would be such a good idea. "Yeah," he agreed, assuming a cheerful attitude. "I had to write a History essay today; I wouldn't want to have to do that again."

Jeremie nodded in agreement. "As it is," he said, "I've got two hours of decrypting to do over." He made a face.

"At least you know what to do now," Odd remarked. "I'd just gotten that science assignment done, and I still have no idea how I did it."

Aelita offered to help, and Odd accepted gratefully. He and Ulrich crept back to their room first, then Jeremie and William left when Odd returned, homework in hand.

"Talk to you later, Aelita," Jeremie whispered from the doorway. 

She smiled, giving his hand a light squeeze. "Goodnight, Jeremie." 

William walked alongside Jeremie on the way upstairs, waiting until they were on the boys' floor before commenting quietly, "You and Aelita have gotten closer since I... left."

Jeremie nodded. "I guess so, yeah."

At the door to Jeremie's room, William stopped. Detecting that the other boy wanted to say something, Jeremie waited.

"That clone program," William asked slowly. "The one you used to make a copy of me. What'd you program it to do?"

"Huh? Why?"

"It's just something Sissi said a while ago. She said I'd been really close with Yumi over the last few months."

"Oh, don't worry," Jeremie assured. "I didn't program it to do anything to _that_ special. Actually, most of the closeness Sissi thought she was seeing was Yumi covering up blunders in the program. The clone could be dumb as a box of rocks, sometimes."

"Uh... You don't say..."

A little too late, Jeremie realized that telling someone his stand-in had made him look like an idiot for several months was probably not a good idea. "I mean, it wasn't too bad. Most of it was covered up by Returns, anyway, so it's not like anyone remembers. Or the people who do remember know it wasn't actually you." 

He couldn't remember just how many instances were covered up by Returns to the Past versus how many made William look like the class clown. For the sake of William's pride, a little embellishment couldn't hurt.

"So Yumi and the clone weren't really close?"

"I think she claimed you as her boyfriend once, just to get people to stop asking why you were always around each other, but it wasn't because the clone was doing anything better than the real you."

William considered this. His next question changed tack completely. "How'd you and Aelita get closer? Did you do anything in particular to get her attention?"

"William, are you trying to figure out how to get Yumi to like you?"

William blushed. "When I thought the clone had done something I hadn't, yeah, I was hoping there would be a way to change how things are now. Or, you know, maybe you knew something I didn't about getting the girl. Or something."

Jeremie shrugged. "Either it'll work out or it won't," he said. "Keep being her friend. She needs that more than a boyfriend." He opened his bedroom door and stepped inside. He didn't close it behind him, a silent invitation to William if he wanted to come in and continue the conversation.

William stood in the hall a few moments longer, then decided he'd rather go to bed. "Thanks for the advice, Jeremie."

"You're welcome."

William closed the door, then returned to his own room. At least he knew the clone hadn't been an improvement -- but the knowledge didn't make his current situation any better.


End file.
